


Bedside Manner

by BIFF1



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Caitlin is stressed, F/M, Mick is totally inapproriate, Slow Burn, angsty fluff, from somewhere after the season one finale, goldenvibe background, mob doctor - Freeform, season one spoilers, sort of bloody, super background coldflash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-06 08:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5410286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BIFF1/pseuds/BIFF1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caitlin was always going into medical research, always, so her bedside manner... well it wasn't great.</p>
<p>Heatwave would disagree.</p>
<p>Or: In which Dr. Snow is forced into a mob doctor role for the Rogues and Mick gets a crush.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Call me Mick

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bealeciphers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bealeciphers/gifts), [MomoMoon115](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MomoMoon115/gifts).



His vision is blurred by alcohol and pain, he feels sick and weak and wants to scream but the sound is caught in the back of his throat, being pushed further and further back by the tequila he's pouring down his throat.

 

"Dr. Snow? If you wouldn't mind?" Len's voice isn't as harsh as he feels it should be, he's fucking dying here.

 

Snow, the pretty doctor that takes care of The Flash is kneeling at his side, covered in his blood, her pretty pale blue blouse is wet and stained, if its as silky as it looks she was never going to get those stains out. She takes a hand away from him and rubs at her eyes with the back of her hand. He doesn't know why she does it but it causes a line of his blood across her face he finds far too appealing.

 

He must be dying he was getting delusional because yeah sure she was pretty but she looked wild and well fucking amazing.

 

He's not going to think too hard about what that says about him, he's got better things to do.

 

_Like not die._

 

"Snow." Len says again and he can actually see something snap in  _the good doctor_  that just make him more distracted by her, more drawn to her.

 

"Back off!" She barks, turning to glare at Len, "you want me to save him? Give me some  _god damn_  room you kidnapping piece of shit." She growls and snatches the bottle away from him.

 

Len has a hand to his face as he steps away from her but Mick turns his attention back to Snow quickly. She is fucking pissed, the look on her face almost violent as she takes a deep drink from the bottle.

 

She looks at him and the eye contact burns for a moment. He reaches out for the bottle, his body bending, a growl of pain falling from his mouth.

 

Snow moves the bottle far behind her and puts her hand on his chest, pushing down. Her fingers against him, heavy pinpoints of an amazing burn.

 

He lets himself be pushed down to the floor and she moves, leaning over him, she grabs at his shirt and rips it apart, her jaw clenched, eyes on his ripped apart body.

 

"This is going to hurt. I don't have any way to knock you out." She tells him plainly, "We have to get this metal out of you."

 

"Do it." He tells her through gritted teeth watching her carefully, she's covered in blood, she's angry, and he is finding her movements beautiful, like a flickering fire.

 

She digs into him and he howls in pain, she doesn't stop to even look at him.

 

"Aren't you supposed to be big and strong?" She asks voice acidic, "Can't take a little triage?" The way she moves her shoulders and back to focus on pulling shrapnel from him catches his breath.

 

Her shirt, he can, he can see down her shirt. He swallows hard because  _fuck_.

 

"If I'm going to die you could at least take your shirt off." He tells her and when she looks up at him her eyes are narrow, angry, hot lasers but a gentle flush has taken hold of her cheeks.

 

"Your blood has more important places to be." She grumbles going back to digging inside him, "Lay down."

 

"Whatever you say doc." There is something odd in his tone, he barely notices with the sharp pains shooting up him but he thinks it might have been flirtatious, "Do I get a last wish?" He asks staring up at the ceiling, wishing he could look at her, watch her.

 

"You're not dying Heatwave-"

 

"Mick."

 

"What?"  There are strange sounds against the floor. Like she's dropping things beside her, shrapnel probably.

 

"Call me Mick."

 

"You're not going to die..." She makes a strangled noise, "Mick." The way she says it pops in her mouth, a hard ck sound and he likes that.

 

"I want you on top." He tells her and her hands stutter against his skin, his insides.

 

"Excuse me?"

 

"Mick now isn't really the time to be coming on to your doctor." Len tells him but Len can suck a dick. He's the one that forgot to mention about the traps in the place like they were robing a fucking ancient temple.

 

Mick leans up pushing himself up onto his elbows, "When we fuck, I want you to be on top."

 

Her face twists angrily and she turns away from him to look at Len, "Knock him out, he's delusional." He can see the flush down her neck though and its sweet, its cute and when she turns back to him upset that Len won't knock him out she reaches out and grabs his ear and twists until he's whimpering and laying back down on the ground.

 

"I think he likes your bedside manner." Len tells her with a laugh.

 

"Very funny." She hisses and goes back to saving his life. It's painful, his fingers graze her nylon covered knee, he wants to touch her move, he shifts to grab her and a blinding pain flashes through him and with a hollow sounding gasp he grips her nylons tightly before he loses consciousness.

 

_  
He wakes up with his chest wrapped, in his own bed, Snow nowhere to be seen. Len is standing in the doorway of his bedroom talking to someone.

 

Snow?

 

"Hey." He grumbles, voice rough as he sits up in bed. He's sore, bruised and he wants to see her.

 

Len turns to him and Lisa flutters into the room, pushing past Len to sit down on the end of his bed.

 

"Where's the doctor?" He asks glancing between Lisa and Len.

 

Len looks at his watch, "Should be back in her bed by now, why?" Len looks at him, eyebrow raised and Mick looks down at the clean white bandages across his chest.

 

Runs a hand carefully across the right wrappings. He knows she had done it, it has a brutal efficiency to it.

 

"Oh man," Lisa bites back a smile and turns to Len, "You were right, he does have a thing for her now."

 

"Shut the fuck up Lisa." He grumbles but Lens taken hold of the conversation.

 

"You know that Florence Nightingale bullshit usually works the other way right? Or at least with someone with better bedside manner."

 

"I don't have... Shut up..." He looks around the room and grabs the nearest thing, a lamp and throws it at Len. He sidesteps easily but he seems to have gotten his point across because he waves two fingers at Lisa and they both leave.

 

He laid there in bed running a hand along tightly wrapped bandages and thought about her pretty face smeared with his blood, how amazing she'd look naked, glaring at him, bossing him around.

 

She would totally be bossy. He could feel it.

 

He wanted to see her, he wanted to thank her for being rough and for keeping him alive, he wanted to give her a gift.

 

He opened the drawer of his nightstand and watched how the light played with the rubies hidden there. The necklace dripped with them. He had thought it looked like fire and Len had included it in his part of the last score.

 

Well the second last score, the one where he hadn't taken some sort of booby trap to the gut.

 


	2. Red and Orange Flowers

The apartment smells wrong. It doesn't smell like the lilac cleaning spray, or the lemongrass soap she uses in the kitchen.

She sets her keys on the kitchen counter and narrows her eyes. The room has a strange flinty smell, a manly kind of blood and iron and fire scent.Caitlin takes the baseball bat from beside the fridge and moves through her apartment, had she been robbed? The kitchen, living room, bathroom, office all are empty and full.Empty of robbers, full of her stuff.There's a definite problem though, several photographs of Ronnie have been overturned and she knew she hadn't done it. No windows open, no animals. Someone had put the photos face down as they wandered through her house and didn't steal anything.It was unsettling.So unsettling that when she saw the bedroom door closed, which it hadn't been this morning she backs up, locks herself into the bathroom with her bat and calls Barry."Cait?" Barry whispers knocking feather light against the door. She very carefully opens the door and points down the hall to the master bedroom."Check the bedroom... They might still be here."He nods and speeds away down the hall.There's nothing but the near silence of the building for a long moment before Barry's voice calls out from the bedroom."Cait? You're going to want to see this..."She's worried its a body, or a murder-y rape-y clue left behind."It's a... It's a teddy bear." The relief in her voice is clear, she sags against the door frame and looks at the bear in Barry's hand.It's a little teddy bear fireman, with suspenders and reflective pants and around his little fireman helmet is something ungodly sparkling, like fire.She reaches out for it and pulls the thing off the teddy bear."Is this a...""A ridiculously expensive Ruby necklace stolen from the Rathaway art gallery last month... Yeah..."She holds it up to her neck for a moment before dropping it to her dresser, "Who?""I think the who is a little obvious Cait the question is why is Heatwave leaving you presents and giving you security tips?" Barry hands her a piece of paper with messy writing on it."Security tips?" _Thought this would look good on you.  Get a deadbolt there are criminals all over this city ready to take advantage of a pretty woman who lives alone. Your security system is terrible you should get Cisco to fix something for you._ _Mick_ "Cait? What happened?" Barry asks quietly and she can see him eyeing the bloody clothes at the bottom of her closet.She sighs unhappily and drops the adorable teddy bear into the garbage by her bed, "They had me play mob doctor for them a couple days ago. Honestly he should still be resting not breaking into my house." The idea that he had broken into her house sent chills down her spine she was absolutely going to get Cisco to fix some anti super villain alarm for her as soon as possible."Caitlin! Why didn't you say anything?"She's not really sure why, she hadn't even bothered to complain about it. She had been kidnapped sure but it hadn't been for any end other than saving the pyro's life. Her oath extended to everyone even supervillains that had stolen her from her lonely dinner."It wasn't a big deal, all that happened was I ruined some clothes.""And got a not so secret admirer." Barry held up the necklace. It really was beautiful, and would look great on her... Too bad it was stolen, also she had no intention of encouraging this kind of behaviour."It will be fine Barry. Just... He'll get the hint that I'm not interested when you return the necklace to the gallery.""If you're sure... You don't want me to go speed punch him in the junk or anything?"She bit back a smile, "No Barry, I'm sure it'll be fine."Barry left shortly after to return the necklace and was replaced by Cisco. He walked around her apartment, tut-tuting the lax security. She hadn't really thought it an issue before, before the particle accelerator had exploded the most she had to worry about in this neighbourhood was the occasional mugging. Plus back then Ronnie had been staying here. This was going to be  _their_  house until they managed to afford a house.She sat on the couch watching him twist wire and sodder."So Heatwave has the hots for you?" Cisco asks quietly focusing more on the electronics in his hands then on what her answer might be."I don't know why. I wasn't very nice to him while I was stitching him up." No one ever accused her of that, that was for sure. Her bedside manner had never seemed important since she had always planed on research and not people."Yeah... You're bedside manner leaves something to be-" he looks up at her and she's not sure what kind of face she's making but he stops and decides to change the subject, "Have you started watching BSG yet?""What?"He points dramatically at the box sets of Battlestar Galactica sitting on the end of her coffee table.She hadn't even taken a single disc out of the box yet, hadn't moved it an inch from where Cisco had dropped it almost a month ago."Uh..."He makes a noise in the back of his throat like he's disappointed but not surprised, "Well once I'm done here we can watch at least the first..." He scrunched his face up at the wires in his hand, "five episodes."Five?She wanted to say something about how that was five hours of TV, that was too much, that would burn her out.He takes her silence as agreement and excitedly goes about upgrading her security.They watch three episodes before the bleak nature of the show gets to her, glad that the day has taken enough out of her that Cisco believes her when she yawns and asks for a rain check.When he's gone the apartment is quiet, that near silence of an apartment building, nothing in her unit but laughter and children somewhere down the hall, some angry Mandarin drifting through the thin walls, the scraping of moving furniture.Caitlin tries to find some comfort in the sounds of life but it just makes her apartment feel even more lifeless. She arms the security system and makes her way to bed. The photos of Ronnie, their engagement photos are still face down and something in her tells her not to fix it.Laying in the cold bed she stares at the ceiling waiting for sleep to claim her. There's a hollow in her where Ronnie used to live, it feels like something was ripped away from her, something important and now she isn't a whole person before.How had she ever felt complete without him, before.She can feel a sting in her eyes and rolls over onto her side, the large space behind her made to house another soul was empty and painful, she could look at it.The little fireman is looking up at her from the garbage can and with a sigh that shakes she takes it out, brushes off a lipstick stained tissue and wraps her arms around it.The bear smells like flint, smoke and fire, smells like blood. The smell of another person. She pulls it closer because it staves off the pang of loneliness deep in her chest.It's easy to pretend she isn't alone tonight with the smell in her nose and the pillows pulled down next to her to create a body. She's just not sure  _who_  she's imagining there.A man on fire, but for the first time it doesn't come in clear like Ronnie always had before, its smeared, smoky and the scent of Ronnie's shampoo, still under the sink in the bathroom is replaced by the metallic scent of blood.  
_"How long has this been happening?" Iris asked pointing at the bright red and orange flowers on her kitchen counter. The kitchen was full of flowers, the scent of them heavy in the air. The colors of them made it look like it was on fire. She was sure that had been the point.Caitlin paused in her search for her wallet, "the flowers?""Yeah the flowers." Iris smiles softly shaking her head and moving to the kitchen to no doubt search for a tag on one if the bunches."Just a month.""A month?" Iris pulls a tag off of one of the newer bunches and returns to look at her incredulously, "a month? You've been seeing someone for a month and you didn't tell me?"Caitlin stands up quickly, her wallet clenched in her hand, "I am not  _seeing_ Mick.""Mick huh? Tell me everything about him!" Iris looked excited and ready to gossip, a light to her eyes that is so rarely there any more, "Is he handsome? Tall? Rich? Smart? Tell me!" She bounced a little and Caitlin sighed."Mick is Heatwave.""Heatwave? So that's what the kids are calling... Wait. Heatwave as in  _Heatwave_  Heatwave? The supervillain.""Yeah."If she had hoped that would deter her from going down a road that were they twenty years younger would have ended with a sing song about a tree, she was sorely mistaken. Instead of moving to the door so they can go catch the movie they had meant to see, she sits down on the couch turning the tag over in her hands.Waiting.With a sigh she sits down as well.Iris is twisting the tag around, all it really was was a piece of heavy card stock with his name on it and a receipt stapled to it.They all had receipts, he apparently determined the fact that the first gift was  _stolen_  to be the reason she hadn't wanted it. The flowers were expensive, from a high end boutique with a French name and a penchant for rare flowers."I treated Mick when he got ripped open by some small bomb during a job with Cold. Ever since he's been sending me gifts." She shrugged, at least he hadn't broken into the apartment again.One of the notes, the first bunch of fiery flowers left at her door had an added note scrawled onto the receipt about how the security system was much better and that he wanted the next time he was in her apartment for it to be because of an invitation.She doesn't tell Iris that.She had no intention of telling anyone. _Ever_.Especially that the tag was hidden away in her night stand, where the teddy bear also hides during the day.It was just... It made her feel less alone, cared for in a way she hadn't been since Ronnie... Since before Firestorm and before the explosion."How did you even end up treating him?""Cold kidnapped me on my way home from work." She waves it away even though Iris looks scandalized, "Its not something I expect to happen again.""Until the next time something goes wrong and one of Cold's Rogues gallery get shot up or worse."She hadn't really thought about that, but its unlikely to be an issue. That job had been a fluke, something new added in secret after Cold had planned the heist. They wouldn't need her services again.Thank god."So... He just buys you flowers? It's a lot of flowers for just a month." She twists the tag in her hand and eyes the dollar amount. Caitlin is pretty sure you are supposed to hide the cost of gifts from the receiver but it must have been a special case of him just wanting to make sure she knew he had paid for everything this time around, "These are not cheap flowers...holy...""Better than stolen jewellery." She mumbles and thankfully Iris doesn't seem to catch it.

 

"What are you going to do?"

 

"About what?"

 

"Mick."

 

She makes a face and looks past Iris to the kitchen, "You're right, I am running out of counter space for them."

 

A soft little laugh falls from the woman opposite her and it pulls her attention away from the fire of flowers behind her, "What?"

 

"How is that your only concern? He's a _supervillain_ and he's sending you flowers every couple of days. Maybe you should get Barry to talk to him? You know superhero to supervillain?"

 

"Yeah... you're probably right..." She looks down at her hands, at her long surgeons fingers and the still visible tan line where her rings used to be. She rubs at the skin there but nods, "I'll talk to Barry in the morning about it. Tell him that one man on fire was more than enough for me." She bites the inside of her lip and looks up at Iris, twisting her face into a neutral mask.

 

Iris's smile was weak, soft and gentle as she got up, dropping the tag to the coffee table, "How about we go dancing tonight instead of to that movie. I'll buy you all the blue drinks you can stand."

 

The acknowledgement of her loneliness wasn't said out loud, thank god, but it felt like they maybe both needed a night of drinking and dancing. She nods and lets the conversation turn towards dresses and make up and wonderfully superficial things that keep their minds away from the empty spaces in their beds.

 


	3. Backdrafts

He pressed a hand against his stomach, he'd been doing that a lot this past month, ever since Dr. Snow had stitched him up. He had expected there to be scarring, there were so many scars from botched jobs and cruel initiations over the years all over his body, but the place she had had her hands was smooth and healed.

 

Mick had always healed quickly but he had prayed for something to go wrong, for there to be a real reason to see her in person, to do more than drop flowers off at her apartment door, to press a hand against the re-enforced steel pretending to be wood and wonder if she was inside. Wondering if he should knock, if he should leave a message.

 

It felt like she should have scared since she had so obviously left a mark on him.

 

He wasn't good at this metaphorical bullshit.

 

Inhaling the smoky, sulphur and hot scent of his gun he tried to focus on the red blur racing around Len and himself.

 

He wondered if Flash knew if she was okay? If she liked the flowers? Should he get different flowers? Did she have a favourite flower?

 

His gun goes off without him paying much attention and a large painting starts on fire, a huge burnt line across it.

 

Len hisses at him to focus and he tries to snap his attention away from the beautiful mesmerizing consuming fire. It's not easy, something in his core sings with the flicker and crackle, his body seems to shake with excitement.

 

For a moment he forgets all about Snow and is consumed with the joy of fire.

 

"Things getting too hot for you Flash?!" He yells the blaze of fire trailing behind the speedster until he's hit square in the stomach and he doubles over, the gun still clenched tightly in his hand.

 

"I thought you were fine!" Len yells rushing over to him, sending a blast of cold across The Flash's bow and the red leather clad  _hero_  steps back to let Len stand between them.

 

He grabs onto the back of Len's parka and pulls himself up off the floor.

 

"I'm fine." He grumbles trying to shake it off but he's still tender and he had pushed Len into letting him go instead of Lisa because he was itching for something to do.

 

"No, I'm not-" The Flash is grumbling to himself as he steps back from Len to watch the kid, "He's...ugh-" The Flash sags defeated, "I thought I was supposed to tell him to- you want me to what?" The Flash rolls his head around like an impatient child and Len just watches amused at the one sided conversation.

 

"Something wrong kid?" Len asks biting a smile into a smirk.

 

"Caitlin wants you to- don't make me do this Cait-" He grumbles but he doesn't care what it is, Mick steps forward towards The Flash, his gun dropped to his side.

 

"Can she see me?" He asks voice softer than he wishes it would be. He wasn't Mick right now, Mick could be soft and careful, Heatwave couldn't.

 

"Yeah."

 

He raises a hand to wave at her before he catches himself and puts it back down a blush threatening to cross his smudged face, "Did you like the flowers?" He asks through The Flash. She was somewhere behind the mask in a lab monitoring the kid's vitals, watching.

 

"I am really uncomfortable with this." The kid whines before he bites his lip and continues, "She says not to send any more and to..."

 

"Did she want something else? You're not allergic to flowers are you?"

 

The Flash shakes his head and puts up a hand to stop the flood of questions that threaten to fall from his mouth, "She says that she doesn't want  _anything_  from you, she doesn't like you Mick. Now-"

 

"She... okay..." Mick clenches his teeth, setting his jaw and raising his gun, "Fine. I can take a hint Dr. Snow. Have fun treating you're pretty boys burns." He growls and aims straight at The Flashes chest.

 

The stupid kid is a blur, his gun is knocked out of his hands and he's flat on his back, The Flash's leg pressed against his throat, he claws at the kid, rocking back and forth unhappily, yelling for Len, "Cold! Cold what the fuck are you doing! Stop this-HEY!" Mick yells when The Flash grabs a handful of jacket and pulls it away, pushing his shirt up until he's looking down at his stomach.

 

Mick manages to push The Flash and roll away, his hand on his heatgun, he turns to look at the superhero with narrowed eyes, "What the  _fuck_  is wrong with you!" He growls ready to send a torrent of flames straight through the kids face.

 

"Caitlin says that you're stupid but fine. You shouldn't be doing this while you're healing."

 

His finger falters on the trigger, "She wanted to know if I was okay?"

 

"I wouldn't think too much of it Heatwave, she's a doctor, she takes it very seriously."

 

"Right." 

 

There's a bright blue light beside him and ice forms on the speedster's legs.

 

"Enough chit chat, lets get out of here, we only have two minutes, nineteen before the police get here." Len growls and takes off deeper into the building, Mick follows him running a hand across his sore stomach. He'll save a bundle not buying all those flowers...

 

There's an ache in him that's a little too high to be his stomach, something unexplainable in his chest as he thinks about Dr. Snow and how her apartment wasn't going to smell like those pretty flowers any more.

 

He hops into the waiting car in an alley two buildings back from the target and looks down at himself. He feels terrible, he shouldn't feel terrible, that building was on fire, he loved that shit.

 

"Seatbelt." Len tells him and with a sigh he clicks the buckle in place, "What's your problem?" Len asks easing them into traffic, going the speed limit away from the crime scene. Mick watches the red and blue lights speed past them going the other way.

 

"Nothing."

 

"Don't..." Len warns but he honestly doesn't know what he's warning him against.

 

"Don't what?"

 

"Don't make things awkward for  _The good Doctor._ "

 

"I wasn't." 

 

"How many flowers did you send her?"

 

He doesn't answer, which is of course answer enough  for Len, who sighs heavily as he changes lanes.

 

" _Mick_."

 

"It was harmless." He grumbles, turning to stare out the widow of the continental, "I won't send her any more flowers."

 

"Or?"

 

"I won't send her any more  _gifts_ okay?"

 

Len pulls his goggles down around his neck and turns to Mick at a red light, "Snow is a good guy Mick, do you know how old she was when she got her doctorate? She gives to charity when it's not Christmas, selfless, focused, strict, girls like that, they don't go down the bad boy road. We'll find you someone. Lisa knows some morally dubious girls, I'm sure one of them-"

 

"Stop." His voice is rough and firm and Len stops mid-sentence to look at him properly, he doesn't know exactly what morally dubious is supposed to mean but it reeked of pay by the hour and made his stomach twist and turn.

 

"Villain's don't get Heroes Mick."

 

There was something in the way he spoke that made him think that this little speech wasn't just for him. He wondered if Len also felt this strange ache in his chest, it was awful, he hated it, it made him feel reckless and lazy all at once. It was confusing and he didn't like it. It felt like fire but it didn't excite him like that thought so often did.

 

He was too old for this shit, made older by the life he'd lived, the life he was living, would always live. His sins were heavy in him as he ran a finger along the length of the gun, she was too clean, fuck her name was  _Snow_  for fucksake. 

 

What did he think would happen? She'd turn her back on The Flash, on the righteous life she lead, to what? Be with him?

 

He was thankful that Len didn't seem to have any more to say to him as they drove back to the safe house to wait out the night.  
_

 

He's stopped sending flowers, just like everyone but the florist wanted. The french woman had actually called the week before to make sure everything was all right. 

 

No.

 

Nothing felt all right but he tried to keep the feelings in check because it was obvious to everyone, himself included that he had fallen too hard for it to be something real.

 

He didn't know Snow well enough to love her.

 

It was as simple as that.

 

He was infatuated, he had been consumed, it was something he did. He was a ride or die kind of person, all in, and if she wasn't even partly in then he'd move along.

 

It just wasn't as easy as it had been in the past, he could feel her hands on him, in him, and it was something sickening and amazing at the same time.

 

Mick was sitting at the bar of some up-scale club just off the core, it was stumbling distance from the safe house he was currently using, the florist was actually just a block and a half south of here. He sat at the end, away from the throng of people, keeping to himself, nursing this heartache with Backdrafts, enjoying the feel of the fire against his hand before knocking back the shot.

 

The place throbbed with music, the people, young and pretty, dancing all over the place. He moved closer to the bar, looking out at the room, when his heart stopped.

 

Snow.

 

Snow in a pretty light blue dress that was way too short for her. Not that he didn't appreciate the extra length of leg but he could see her tug at the hem nervously. Had she seen him? Should he say something? Wave? Offer to buy her a- 

 

His heart was clenched in a vice because she turned to look at someone beside her, a man, a smile, nervous and tentative on her face.

 

A date.

 

Oh god she was on a date?

 

Of course she was on a date. Why wouldn't she be on a date? She was young and pretty and a widow. Mick slunk down in his seat and miserably motioned for another drink. He hoped she wouldn't notice him.

 

He should probably just settle up and leave, before he chanced bumping into her at the bar or on the way to the bathroom. He drops a roll of money on the bar and pushes away from the bar. He'll stop somewhere an pick up some beer before he gets home. Mick slips through the crowd past her and her date, close enough to hear her voice, nervous but firm, his well articulated and honestly he sounded boring as fuck.

 

He didn't feel too bad at that, if she liked boring guys maybe it was for the best because he could never be that. Firestorm must have been a fluke.

 

"No, I don't want to." A voice slipped past his thoughts, the voice shook with fear and he paused to search it out. It was scared and young.  _Too young_. He scanned the crowd and found her. A small girl, maybe seventeen,  _maybe_  with her back against a wall and a man crowding her, a hand on her leg, the other wrapped around the girls hair.

 

Walking towards them he could see the tears in the girls eyes as the man in the suit bared down on her.

 

"Hey." Mick's voice was gruff from the fiery drinks as he put a hand, heavy and strong on the man's shoulder, "The girl doesn't want to go with you." He hisses turning the man around to face him.

 

With a yelp the girl tries to merge with the wall, pressing as far into it as she can.

 

"What's it to you." The man, handsome, young, rich looking.

 

"If the girl doesn't want to go with you, she doesn't want to go." He looks past the man to the girl, "Does your mother know where you are?" He tells her, "Go." He motions and it breaks a spell because she runs, knocking over drinks in her rush to get the fuck out of here.

 

Good.

 

He pulls his hand away from the man and turns to leave but the man apparently isn't used to losing.

 

"Do you know what I am?" The man asks, loudly, the music seems to pale in comparison to this punks shrill tone, he can see a shield on the man's belt.

 

_Of fucking course_.

 

He takes a quick look around at the fresh faces and eager looks.

 

Cop bar.

 

A shit tonne of rookies desperate to make a name for themselves.

 

"Do you know  _who_  I am?" Mick responds his hand goes to his hip but there isn't a gun there any more, he had left the heatgun at his apartment, it was too tempting to use it to light his own drinks Len had made a rule that if he was going drinking he couldn't bring that gun. He didn't seem to have brought any gun with him at all.

 

The other man didn't seem to have that problem. His service revolver no longer in it's holster.

 

Fuck. Maybe he did know who Mick was.

 

What did he used to do before the super powered gun?

 

Mick sends his fist into the man's pretty face quickly,  _Oh yeah_ _that_. The bar fight erupts around them, small, localized, most people dodging for cover, giving them space as Mick remembers just how much damage he can do without gun in his hand.

 

Short quick jabs, tight, guard up, eyes wild, vision swimming a little with the build up of alcohol he hadn't really noticed when he was sitting.

 

There are two more guys involved in the fight now, and he notices with a sharp pain in his shoulder, and across his face that neither of them are on his side.

 

Another fist is sent across his face and a barrage of hits drops him to his knees.

 

Someone yells behind them, "Fire!" A feminine shrill panicked sound and he curses as he tries to push himself up off the floor.

 

The patrons scatter in panicked chaos and a hand drops to his shoulder, he reaches out to grab it and tear it away but its soft and strong, female.

 

He looks up to see Dr. Snow standing beside him, looking down at him with a mix of concern and anger. He's pretty sure that's her default state.

 

"Let's get you out of here, and cleaned up." She tells him, moving in front of him and grabbing the front of his jacket to help pull him to his feet.

 

"Snow..." He looks around for the handsome face she had been with, "Where's your date? I didn't mean to..." She waves the thought away and throws his arm over her shoulder and helps him out the front.

 

He lets her help him out the front and through the gathering people staring back at the building they had come from.

 

He looks behind him as she keeps them moving forward away from the police and arriving firemen. Smoke was pouring out of the building, fire lapping at the edges of windows.

 

"Lucky that fire broke out." He grumbles as they turn a corner and are finally out of sight of the police.

 

"Yeah, lucky." She grumbles in response only have listening, her attention sharp on the cuts and bruising across his face. She reaches out a hand to gingerly check the swelling above his eye and he snatches her hand. He knows the tell-tale smell of flint, smoke and fire caught in her skin and sleeve.

 

"You know burning down a cop bar isn't really the best way to get me to stop liking you."

 

She looks at him and carefully takes her hand from his, her hand slipping through his grip. She holds her hand to her chest, folding in on herself a little and he feels like shit.

 

She is chewing on her bottom lip, not looking at him trying to figure out what to say.

 

"I didn't think it would get so out of control..." She starts but shakes her head, her shoulders drop, her back straight she stares right at him, "I just don't appreciate some dirty cop messing up my work." She tells him jaw set, firm, strong, probably lying, "Now where is your place so I can clean you up."

 

He leads her to the safe house he's using, its small, open, there's a fireplace in the ultra modern living room. He's a little embarrassed by the mess of clothes and papers all over the place.

 

"Not exactly the reason I wanted you to come over Snow." He says it and instantly wishes he hadn't. She points to the bathtub and he sits on the edge as she goes through his cabinets and pulls out a first aid kit he hadn't even known was there.

 

She knocks his knees apart rough and settles between them on her knees.

 

_God she's pretty._

 

Her mouth a line of determination as she cleans his cuts without warning of the burn. He shies away from her hand and she just grabs his face with strong fingers and keeps him in place.

 

He wants to kiss her.

 

He wants to kiss her so bad.

 

Dr. Caitlin Snow, who yelled at Len, who was wonderfully rough, concerned, focused, strict. Who had burnt down a fucking building for him tonight. He can feel his heart race at the closeness, at the possibility, his eyes on her shimmering lips.

 

He'd messed up her date. She had been on a date, with some handsome guy that was probably a cop.

 

"I'm sorry." He tells her honestly, there's an ache in his tone that he's ashamed of, "I'm sorry."

 

"For what?"

 

"For sending you all those-"

 

She does something to his face that stings again, "Stop talking, this needs a couple stitches." She tells him firmly so he does, "I...I..."

 

He looks at her confused, she was fumbling with her words like she didn't know if she should say them or not and it only made him more interested in what she had to say.

 

She has a needle and thread from the kit in her hands and he doesn't dare talk.

 

"I liked the flowers." She tells him as she runs her fingers along a cut, "do you have some ice?"

 

"Freezer..."

 

She nods and stands leaving him and he can't help but wonder what the hell that was supposed to mean. Did she like him? No. Not like he liked her. Fuck! Why was she so complicated.

 

She came back with some ice in a baggie and without warning put it against his face, he swore, a stream of curses but she was unphased.

 

When it was numb or numb enough as she said, she started to stitch him together.

 

"I don't need flowers Mick, but, but they were nice." She tells him her focus on the stitches.

 

He can't think of what to say so he doesn't say anything, he's just glad she called him Mick instead of Heatwave, she seems to readily accept the silence and when she's done she leaves without really saying anything.

 

The door is closed before he can get the word  _stay_  out of his mouth.


	4. CCFD sweater

"If you didn't like Detective Davis you could have just said so instead of, you know, setting a bar on fire to escape."

"I didn't  _escape_." She tells him from her desk chair, twisting a little nervously. She had just  _known_  agreeing to go out with one of Barry's badge buddies would end poorly. She just hadn't expected to end  _that_  poorly.To end in Mick Rory's apartment, stitching his face back together. The way he looked at her twisted something in her gut at the same time as unknotting her. It was confusing and complicated and she didn't want to talk about it.With anyone.Ever."But you don't deny setting the bar on fire." Cisco pointed at her victoriously, "I mean I knew he couldn't be that good looking  _and_  interesting in but  _damn._ "She isn't going to tell them she had set a fire in order to save Mick. To stop the beat down he had taken, drunk underdog, saving that  _girl_  from that sleazy cop.Something in her had just snapped when she saw him drop to his knees. She couldn't handle it, didn't want to have to save his life again.Yeah.That's what it was. She liked that dress, she wasn't going to let him get blood all over it.Although now it reeked of smoke so maybe it didn't really have anything to do with that at all.He hadn't sent her any flowers in weeks.The last of the flowers had died the morning of her date...She had taken it as a sign, as a sign of what she hadn't been sure, of starting new, of leaving the odd fluttery comfortable feeling receiving those flowers every couple of days had given her, a sign to replace the imagined company brought on by the fiery petals and heavy scent in favour of real company.Real company she had thrown away the moment Mick had fallen to his knees.There was probably something important hiding in that action, in the snap her brain had made but, well, she had more important things to think about."Can we please talk about something else besides my terrible social life please?" She taps on her clipboard and gets up to push Barry down into a seat to check something that's been bothering her about the readings the suit had been giving on his vitals the last few days.His heart was always way too quick for her to be comfortable with but the last few interactions with the Rogues had sent him into what would have initiated cardiac arrest where it anyone else.Barry is whining softly about the way she's treating him, too rough, too cold and she just keeps thinking back to the look Mick gave her the other night in his bathroom while she took care of him.Like he wanted to kiss her.She pulls her lips into her mouth but it doesn't feel like a very good surrogate for kisses, no matter how hard she presses.He'd be rough right... Chapped lips and heavy hands, he'd burn her alive, lips hard and demanding.It had been so long since she had been kissed like that, like she was all that mattered, like they wanted to possess her, be possessed by her.That's what it would be like right? He would have leaned forward right there in the bathroom and taken hold of her and kissed her until she was breathless.Senseless. Blissfully senseless, thoughts flying away from her brain to make room for memorizing the way he moved, strong, hot, burning like he was a fire barely contained by his body."Cait?" Barry's voice pulls her away violently from the floor of Mick's bathroom. She shakes her head to clear it and continues running preliminary tests.Her hand shakes a little against his arm and Barry wraps his hand around it, "Cait are you okay?"No.No she wasn't.Because he hadn't kissed her. Mick hadn't kissed her, she had been right there, kept wetting her lips, heart in her throat and nothing.Nothing.Whatever he felt for her, gratitude for keeping him alive, puppy love, it wasn't a match to that mess of feelings in her gut. She wanted them to match but his feelings were a candle in comparison to the bonfire of confusion in her own body.She shakes her head and forces a smile. Barry smiles in return, something just as forced like he's trying to show her without saying something that he knows what she's going to say is a lie but he's not going to call her out on it.Not yet."I'm fine." She taps the needle again out of habit more than need, "Do you think I'll get in trouble for the fire?" She asks plunging the needle into Barry without any forewarning."No way, Cisco and I already pulled the security tapes.""What do I have to do to keep you guys from watching them?" She didn't want to be caught on tape breaking over Mick Rory, a man she had told (second hand) to basically leave her alone. Didn't want either of them to see her set that fire, see her help Heatwave out of the building.She didn't want to be caught in her strange feelings, especially before she could put a name to it."Nothing at all. Iris already stopped by and pretty much stole them.""Iris did what...""Yeah she sighted some girl code nonsense, waved her hands around, yelled something about the free press and took everything before Cisco could even check that they were right."Crap.Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap.She schooled her features into something neutral and finished up taking all her samples from Barry."I'm just going to..." She checks her wrist, there isn't a watch there, they are both looking at her and she's committed now, "going to go see if Iris wants to have lunch together." She grabs her purse and rushes out of the room before they can say anything one way or the other.  
_Iris is waiting for her by the time she gets to the newspaper."Here for this?" Iris waved a disc at her and she rushed forward to snatch it but Iris was quicker than her.Most people were really."What exactly is it you don't want anyone to see I wonder? The arson or the pyromaniac?"She bites her lips searching Iris for a weak point but she must have known she would be looking because hee guard is up. She can feel the blood rush to her face, hot. Taking deep breaths she holds out her hand."Please Iris... They can't know why I did it.""You'd rather they thought you started a fire because of a bad date then stopping that fight?" Iris lowers her guard but there is something soft, almost sorrowful in her tone that kills any attempts to take the footage.Caitlin takes a wheelie chair from across the room and wheels it loudly to sit close to her."What's going on Caitlin? I thought you wanted him to stop."She shrugs, "I don't know, its... It's complicated." She stares down at her hands, wringing them, rubbing her fingers roughly against her fingers, palm, wrist, they pause at the empty space her rings used to be.Iris wraps a hand around hers and it pulls her attention back to her face."I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to. But...""But?""You can always talk to me."Caitlin slips her hands from Iris' and folds in on herself trying to sort this out. She can't. She can't talk to Iris about this, about Heatwave...  _Mick_. She can barely talk to herself about it. How was she supposed to tell Iris that she was lonely and something about Mick felt... Not  _right_  but certainly better than any of the other men she had attempted to build something with.How could she tell her about it when Eddie's death was still so etched into her. The lost was too fresh. Would probably always be too fresh."I can't, I.. You just lost Eddie-" Iris' breath hitches but she continues anyway, "How can we talk about my messed up love life when you  _just_  lost Eddie-."She had seen the future newspaper, knew the by-line but that didn't seem to matter, even a little bit to Iris. Iris still had the engagement ring around her neck.Caitlin had thrown her rings into a jewellery box and hadn't looked at them in months."You lost someone too. You lost Ronnie,  _your husband_."She shook her head a little, "I've lost Ronnie so many times I'm not sure how much grieving I have left in me.""Caitlin." Iris's voice sounds thick and she knew she shouldn't have brought up Eddie but all the woman does is wheel closer so their knees bump into each other and wrap her arms around her, "You can talk to me about this about anything, everything." She mumbles into her hair and Caitlin finds herself clinging to her.Something happens around them, chaos flooding the room, reporters running all over the place grabbing things and yelling and they pull apart to find out why."Linda, what's happened?""The Flash-"There's a crack of thunder and she doesn't need to say anything else. Caitlin gets up and starts running in one direction as Iris rushes off in the other.  
____"I didn't agree to this." She hisses at Cold.Cold is standing across the bedroom beside Lisa, the pair of them looking as smug and collected as ever,  Lisa gripping a golden umbrella.She wondered how real the gold was, maybe she'd ask as soon as it stopped raining, because while they are cool, calm and dry, she is drenched, stressed and her fingers stained with more Rogue blood.Mark Mardon is howling in pain beneath her hands as she tries to set his leg without anaesthetic while it rains on her. Magic stupid meta indoor rain."Where the  _fuck_ is Shawna!" Mardon screams, "I don't want this Team Flash bitch-""Hey." Mick tells him, voice firm and rough and Mardon flinches a little, like he's about to get hit. She almost wishes Mick would hit him, would serve him right. Mick was standing between them, ever since the weather wizard decided to swing out at her.Mick had caught the fist but just barely. She would rather eat glass than help Mark Mardon, but there she was in Mick's apartment again her hands bloody as she took care of a  _villain_."I don't want her! I didn't agree to this Snart! Where's Shawna!""Shawna's busy. That's why we have a doctor on call."She looks up across the room at him, pushing water out of her eyes, "I absolutely didn't agree to that." She tells him hopefully firmly as Mark squirms under her attention. Angry, stressed, frustrated she reaches out and slams two fingers into one of Mark's nerves.He yowls out twisting in pain and a thunder clap echoes in the room."Stop moving!" She yells at Mark, glaring at him hoping to be fierce enough that he'll listen to her, he seems to, at the very least calm down a little, she snaps the leg back in place and grabs the splint material provided and starts binding the known criminal, "I never agreed to help again." She tells Cold hoping to hold onto at least some of the agency she had as a doctor, "It was a one time deal.""So Mick stitched  _himself_  up last night?" Len asks lazily pointing at Mick. The stitches were still fresh above his eye. Mick had turned to look at her at that and when she met his eyes she could feel the blood rush to her face as her eyes darted naturally across his face to the stitches and then his mouth.God did everyone see that?Did they see her look at his mouth?!Christ she hoped not.She tore her eyes away from Mick, tightening the splint until Marden whined and whimpered under her."That was different." She grumbled not looking at anyone."How?" Lisa prodded.Caitlin stepped back away from the bed, his leg properly set and splinted, "Because I didn't have a job interview today." She bites wondering what had happened to her to allow her to bite and yell at The Rogues, genuine supervillains, surrounded by them with no chance of help and just be upset that she had ended up ruining another shirt because of this agreement she hadn't even agreed to."Job interview? I thought you worked at STAR labs with Cisco?" Lisa asks, keening a little on her friends name."Yeah well, the paychecks kind of stopped rolling in when my boss turned out to be an evil speedster from the future. So yeah. I have a job interview first thing." She pulled at the wet fabric of her shirt, it clung and without a screaming patient to deal with she couldn't help but notice just how see through it had become, "I'd like to go home now." She sighs and with a short curt nod from Cold she leaves the dripping bedroom.Mick follows her a out, "Seems weird you need to interview." His voice is low and rumbles somewhere in her chest.She turns and leans against the apartment door as he comes to a standstill just a few feet away."Why? You've been a criminal so long you've forgotten about job interviews?"He smiles a little at that and her heart thuds unhelpfully in her ears, "No, I meant because you're a published scientist.""Published? You know I've been published?"He shrugs but the answer was obviously yes, "Didn't understand much but... seems like people should be offering you jobs."She huffs a little in disappointment, torn between something happy and fluttery in her gut that he not only knows she's been published but that he'd read at least one and the harsh reality of her employability. She picks at her shirt, pulling it away from her now clammy skin, "When the particle accelerator blew up that night it took my promising career with it. My name is scientific mud at this point." She sighs wondering why she was even telling him this, maybe it was just nice to complain about it to someone."Wait." He tells her firmly before turning back and walking down the hall and disappearing into the soggy bedroom.She should leave.That job interview at Mercury was early in the morning and it was getting late. She'd want to shower off the scent of blood before she went to bed as well...She's thinking of the best way home from here when Mick returns with a sweater in his hands."Here." He holds it out, something off in his voice, something soft and lilting... Nervous?"What's this for?" She asks unfurling it to see the thick sweater with CCFD and crest, she looks past it at him, "Do you steal everything from the fire department?""They gave me this one... I did a short stint as a fire fighter."She doesn't realize what's happening in her chest until the laughter bubbles out. She looks from the sweater to him, the laughter soft in the air between them, "I just, I can't imagine you putting  _out_  fires."She watches the smile on his face brighten and she bites her lips, its a good smile.A shiver runs through her and she realizes he'd given it to her to change into. She starts unbuttoning her shirt and when she looks up at him he has his back turned. The shirt hits the floor with a thwump and she pulls the sweater on over her head. Her hair wet, limp and heavy drips onto the dark red sweater."I should, I should get going. Interview." She tells someone, him? Herself maybe?He turns around and there's something heavy and stiflingly hot in the way he looks at her now.He looks like he's going to say something but his mouth turns into a firm line and he nods.She nods but doesn't move, staring at him expecting...  _Something._  


Devastating kisses maybe?

For him to close the distance between them and take her into his arms, to kiss her until time lost meaning. Something deep that would melt and burn her up.

When a few way too long moments pass with nothing, no movements, no words she swallows hard and turns away and opens the door."Good luck tomorrow." He whispers and she smiles back at him over her shoulder as a response and with a soft  _thanks_  closes his door.The elevator is slow and she keeps looking back at his door, the collar of the sweatshirt in her hands, breathing in the smoky heavy hot smell of Mick Rory.


	5. No room in the inn

"She can laugh? I'd never have believed it." Lisa's voice oozes from the far end of the hall and he turns to look at her.

Golden umbrella in her hand she's leaning against the wall, smiling smug like she knows something he doesn't. God she and Len had the same smile and he hated it on both of them."Don't be a bitch Lisa. Snow isn't a robot."Lisa's smile falls a little at that before she pushes off the wall, to stand at her full height, heels and all to look down at him."You're still calling her Snow?""She hasn't told me otherwise.""You know you could have kissed her just then right?""Don't make fun of me Lisa." He growls turning away from her and heading for the kitchen. He needs a beer if he has to listen to another Snart give a lecture about how he and Snow...  _Caitlin_... Wouldn't work out.He knows okay.He fucking knows.He grabs two beers from the fridge, he knows shes still behind him. He cracks them open and offers her the spare."I'm serious Mick. You should have kissed her.""Lisa-" the tone is low, a growl in the back of his throat."What happened last night?" She leans against the counter across from him, hands wrapped around her beer looking at him, calculating, waiting for him to spill his guts like some gossiping teenager."Nothing ""Really? Because the cops call it arson." Len supplies and he fucking hates this, "Burning down a cop bar not exactly what I'd call keeping a low profile  _Mick_."He takes a long drink, Len always had this way of making his name sound like a curse or a burden. He liked the way it sounded in Snow's mouth better.He liked everything about Snow's mouth better than he liked anything about Len.And Lisa.Fuck.Fuck this. He was an adult, he had been an adult for a long time he didn't need their fucking approval of who he liked.He didn't need to listen to them talk about how what Caitlin had done last night, how it had been a fluke in her judgement, a misjudge of just how flammable that bar had been.He knew already."Get out." He puts his beer down on the counter and stands tall and angry, "I'm not talking about the fight, I'm not talking about Snow, I didn't do anything wrong. Get the fuck out of my house." He growls reaching to his side to pull the heat gun out of its holster.Lisa rolls her eyes, takes a drains the beer and raises her hands lazily, "Calm down Mick. I didn't say you did anything wrong.""I don't want to listen to another lecture about her. So I like her what business is it of yours." He brandishes the gun and lazily the Snarts head to the front door as if they weren't at gun point."Fine. Fine." Lisa grabs her purse and her umbrella and starts out the door, Len leading the way, "just." She sags a little in the doorway looking at him, "If she keeps looking at your mouth like that? Take the fucking hint Mick.""Don't encourage this Lisa." Len tells her tiredly from the hallway and she closes the door behind herself.He can hear them in the hallway waiting for the world's slowest elevator, talking about him, talking about Snow.He likes Lisa a little more than usual when she argues with Len, half heard, that Snow and Mick could totally work.He's pretty sure that's just because she had a rather obvious thing for Cisco.Mick starts back towards the bedroom, wondering how soggy everything was going to be when he stumbled over something.Down, on the floor, in a pile of sopping fabric was Snow...  _Caitlin's_  shirt. He wants to read into that, that she had left it here, a reason to come back, but she had to know she didn't need one.  
_He wants to ask if the interview went well.That was weird right?It's not that he was even worried about her being able to take care of herself, she struck him as the kind of girl with a lot of contingency plans.Plus he was a criminal he lived well, if her morals didn't get in the way he'd support her.That was weird wasn't it.Mick was sure that he had never ever thought about supporting anything or anyone.It was...It was just...It was that he cared. _Fuck_ He flips through the channels on his TV, Mark across from him whining about his leg, about not seeing Shawna, about TV shows and about Dr. Flash."Snow.""I guess I could make it snow if you wanted me to..." Is Marks reply, he's doped up on painkillers Shawna had dropped off. He didn't want to know where they came from but he knew it wasn't a pharmacy. Pharmacy's don't tend to put pills in little baggies."Her name.""Whose name?""The Doctor. Her name is Dr. Snow." Mick tells him tone somewhere between firm and distracted. He's paused the channel surfing on a soap opera, the over acting and sudden close ups keeps trying to pull his eyes away from the rain maker across from him.Mark leaned forward in the arm chair that Mick much preferred to the couch he was on, in his own god damn house. his eyes were blown out, his face pale but he seemed to be in pretty good shape considering he'd had a bit of a flying accident last night. He hoped he'd be okay to go back to his place soon. He wasn't sure where that was but judging by the fussing Shawna had done when arrived this morning he assumed it was with her.Marden had better not be getting ready to fucking tell him anything about Snow. He would set his ass on fire if he heard a single good girl/bad boy reference."Do you think she can get me some morphine? The stuff Shawna gets from the Santini's is probably laced..." points at the baggy on the coffee table and Mick relaxes into the couch."I'll talk to her about it."He's pretty sure she can't, he doubts she has any prescription pads, she had made it more than clear the first time she wasn't a practising physician. Maybe she could get her hands on something untested, something unregulated that would keep Marden quiet during the night.It hadn't been an easy night to sleep on the couch, fold out or not, Marden howling and making storms while he kept revisiting Snow in that sweater, hair wet and dripping, cheeks flushed, her fingers still stained red. It had pulled an ache out in his chest which had been surprising, the way she had looked had sent blood rushing away from his brain, he had been sure that it was an image he'd be revisiting time and again while alone. But thinking back on it, on her, standing there, waiting for something, in his sweater, wet and tired, he didn't so much want to ravage her but pull her to his chest and just  _hold_ her.He turns the channel and a crack of thunder rocks the room. Looking at Marden he turns the channel back to the soap opera raising an eyebrow at him."Don't look at me like that. I want to know how Sami is getting herself out of this mess." Mark crosses his arms and settles back in the chair, the weather clearing up outside. Mick tosses the remote onto the coffee table and settles into the stiff couch to try and figure out who these people even were.Mark keeps pointing out people and giving details about them. Mick isn't sure if he would prefer to just be lost over this information overload.  
_This is no fucking fair.It's his house.That was his bed!Should they even be doing that with his leg all busted up?Mick is lying on the couch, wide awake, staring at the ceiling trying his best not to listen to Mark and Shawna having sex in his bed.Fuck  _he_  doesn't even do that.It's been days, and Mark has been layed up in  _his_  apartment, watching soap operas until Shawna arrives and then they get so involved in each other it's like he doesn't fucking exist.And on top of all that they  _fuck_  in his bed.He doesn't care that Shawna says she'll wash all his sheets, it wasn't the fucking point.He'd burn them the second he got the chance anyway.Mick pushed himself up off the couch and stumbled to the bathroom, cringing at the new tones emanating from his bedroom.Fuck they were vocal. Had neither of them had roommates before?He pounds angrily on the wall between the bathroom and the bedroom but all that  accomplished was a yelled  _sorry_  and a soft argument between them.He can still hear the bed squeak.Mick washes his hands in the sink, and of this.He grabs his gun and his jacket and leaves the apartment, slamming the door behind him.  
_"No room in the inn." Len tells him holding the door close to his chest."Oh come on I'll sleep on the couch, I just have to get away from all the fucking."  He pushes at the door and it opens slightly. Mick looks past Len and catches sight of half eaten fancy cakes, two glasses on the coffee table, and a very telling button up and sweater thrown across the couch in a fit of passion.The clothing he  _knew_  was too small for Len, plus he wouldn't be caught dead in red."You'll have to go somewhere else then. I already kicked Lisa out." Len smiles at him and he notices just how haphazardly he's dressed, the red of his mouth and marks across his neck.Mick makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat as Len closes and locks the doorWas  _everyone_  in Central having sex but him?Fucking Christ.He'd just go to a hotel.Mick pulls out his wallet...He pulls out his...Shit.There is nothing but lint in his hand. So a hotel was out.Who knew where the hell Lisa had gone and he didn't trust any of Len's Rogues further than he could throw them. Certainly not enough to sleep in front of them."This is the worst idea you've ever had Mick." He tells himself over and over again as he crosses town to find himself in front of Snow's door.His heart is doing something it shouldn't be, its pumping too hard, in his ears making him lightheaded because  _fuck_. He told himself he wouldn't do this. That he wouldn't push.He had heard enough from everywhere that this wouldn't work.He knocks anyway.It takes a long moment for something to happen, he can hear her say his name on the other side of the door, the scratch of the deadbolt he's so glad she has and beeping of a security system.The door opens and he means to tell her he's sorry, that he needs to borrow her couch, or some money for a hotel room, that he's sorry but everything dies in his throat when the she comes into view.Her hair is sticking up on one side, matted from sleep, eyes suddenly bright and concerned as she leans out of her apartment to grab his wrist and pull him inside.She's rambling something, a steady stream of what happened and are you okay, what do you need, are you okay, what happened, you need to be more careful, you'll be the death of me.But his throat is dry as he stares at her standing, fussing over him, hands ghosting over stitches and bruises searching out something that she needs to attend to.She's not wearing much, she must not have thought too much about it yet because he's sure she isn't wearing anything substantial under his sweater.His sweater.She had been sleeping in his sweater.Dark red against her pale snowy skin and dark tangled hair.Christ she was going to be the death of him, he just knew it because his body is a fucking disaster zone, he wants to hold her and kiss her and touch her and Christ...Fuck...Everything."Mick? Mick!" She yells grabbing at something on the counter to his left and before he can manage to make words she's shining a tiny flashlight into his eyes.He cringes and pulls away."I just need a place to sleep." He tells her and her entire body seems to deflate, he thinks it's relief, "I'm sorry Snow, I don't want to-"She's smiling softly at him and it throws him.It's such a good smile, sleepy, and he wants to go to sleep and wake up to that look, soft sleepy smile like everything is just soft and fuzzy and dreamlike about her all of a sudden."What?"She shakes her head and moves around him to lock them in. She keys in the alarm code and she doesn't even bother to hide it from him."You should be more careful with your alarm code." He tells her not sure if she's still half asleep or what."Oh..." She looks at him surprised, face flushing with color, "I'll change it if you think I should...""You don't mind if I know the code?""I trust you." She tells him, words soft, a little scared and he can't get any words out of his throat.She looks down at the floor and he can actually see it. When she notices what she's wearing, his sweater and little else, its like a wave of tension across her body and her hands go to her hair, trying desperately to untangle the mess with her fingers.She shouldn't bother, he's pretty sure it was impossible to look better than she did right now.When she looks back at him his heart aches. It illegitimately hurts, maybe he should talk to her about it because it can't be normal, can't be healthy for her to just look at him and for him to have a fucking heart attack."It's laundry day." She tells him quietly and he nods and pretends he can't see the basket full of clean clothes in the office across from them, "I'll get you some blankets.""Just a pillow is fine..." He finally manages to get sound out of his throat. He follows her into the living room, a single wine glass and a half box of cookies is on her coffee table, she snatches them up quickly and dumps them in the kitchen before scurrying down the hall.She returns with sheets and a pillow. He grabs the pillow of the top of the pile and steps away from the couch, "You don't need to-""Nonsense. You may be unplanned but you're still a guest. My mother would be outraged if she knew... Well a lot of things really." Caitlin unfurls the sheets and starts to turn her couch into a make shift bed. He wants to say something, ask about her mother, about her day, about the interview but she is bent over the couch, the sweater riding up her legs and she's so close.She rambles a little bit about etiquette and thread count and something that sounds medical and scientific, its hard to pay attention, but the sound of her voice alone even without context or understanding is... Beautiful?That didn't feel like enough, maybe he's read some poetry or something because he kept struggling to get words to fit Snow and it was frustrating.He wanted to tell her beautiful things, sweet nothings, comforting words, but he couldn't get anything to fit right."Is everything okay? You sure you didn't get hurt again?" Snow asks and he nods, "goodnight Mick.""Night Snow."A smile, soft, sweet, the same as before, almost shy blooms across her face and she stands there looking at him and he remembers Lisa's words and watches her eyes waiting, praying that they drop to his mouth.They don't move. She nods and starts back to her bedroom.He peels off his jacket, shirt, and with his hands on his belt stares at the disappearing light of her bedroom door closing.He needed to say something, anything, he needed her to know he still wanted her, more than ever now. That something was happening between them and it was great and huge and he didn't know but...

It was important.

"I still want you on top."

He...

Oh fuck.

He drops his head, he didn't really just, did he just.

He's an idiot and he's going to die alone.

There's silence in reply, maybe she hadn't heard him.God he hoped she hadn't. He keeps his pants on and climbs into the makeshift bed, pulling the pillow right he realizes it smells amazing.It smelt like her, the whole room had this strange smell, flowery and smoky. It was easy to imagine that they would smell like that. It was a  _them_  smell. Not entirely her, not entirely him, all amazing.

 

Please let her not have heard him.


	6. a pleasure to burn

She can't sleep.

She's staring at the ceiling, her mind racing with all kinds of things, ranging from showing up on her fourth day at Mercury labs having only slept three, three and a half hours all the way to how the empty space beside her, how the bed in general would feel better, more complete, warmer with Mick Rory beside her.On top.Her... On top... Of him...She had seen his body before, well above the belt, and her mind kept drifting to that, the thick, toned, scared abdomen. A powerful, impressive form.Her hands splayed across his chest, his hands a million degrees gripping her waist, hips _._ "fuck." She whispered pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes.Don't think about that Caitlin.Don't.He hasn't even kissed you yet.She wasn't sure he even really wanted to kiss her, she had waited, waited for a sign, a flick if his eyes downward, something but he had just stared intently back at her.Maybe he just wasn't interested in her like that.Then why say those things, that same thing twice, like it wasn't just a wish, like it was a promise now.She should just get up.March out there and demand to know what the hell was going on. Did he want to kiss her or did he want to fuck. Did he want to kiss her and have sex... Make love...She scrunched her nose at the term. It was such a wishy washy way if putting it.Did he like her.Did her like her  _that way_.In that strange all consuming way. Would he have set a building on fire for her?That was a stupid question. Mick would set anything on fire without provocation. She must really need the sleep.Caitlin rolled over, her back to the empty space that should so obviously be filled with Mick.Maybe he just wasn't built to kiss, some people weren't. No matter how much she wished he would just fucking kiss her already.She threw a pillow across the room in a fit.She could imagine with vivid almost hallucinative detail the press of his mouth, the feel of hot breath against her skin, fingers, hands, hot, heavy, substantial against her, tangled in her hair, pressing her closer, pulling her like she wasn't already drawn in.A moth to a flame seemed a little too spot on.He was dangerous, a known criminal, was she harbouring right now?A strangled sound left her body because old Caitlin would have called the police, and have this  _criminal_  taken into custody. New Caitlin... Ugh... Well the person she was now just  _couldn't_. She didn't want him farther away, she wanted him closer.She wanted the smell of those flowers back, she wanted the unbearable heat of him so close it might burn her alive.Caitlin flops back onto her back and staring at the ceiling knew she liked Mick.She  _liked_  Mick.A lot.It was confusing because she shouldn't, what was there about Mick that she should like?Her mind filled the blank with a Rolodex of things, ranging from how sweetly protective he was, the intensity in his eyes, the line of his jaw, the fact that he took that beating to save that girl, that he had put in the effort to read at least one if her published articles, how his skin felt under her fingers.More and more things kept falling into the pro column and really the only thing left in the con column was  _criminal_.Maybe she just needed to get laid. She hadn't since... before the wedding... It had been a long time now.This was just chemical reactions in her, calling out to release some primal tension she couldn't reach on her own.That was it.It's a sex thing.Yeah.She could deal with that right now she's sure. If she went out there and threw her leg over his hips he'd take the bait.He was a villain after all.Of course he would.Biting her lips she tosses the blankets aside and gets out of bed. The bedroom door opens without sound and she tries to steel herself.She wanted this.She really did.She wants to feel him everywhere, to melt into him, melt like snow in a Heatwave. It was corny maybe but it didn't make it less true.Caitlin came up behind the couch, her breath held. She could do this.She could.Looking down at him her heart starts hammering inconveniently in her chest and ears.He's asleep, shirt off, burns and scars creating a map across his skin. She's a little surprised he's still wearing his pants, belt and all, the sheets are bunched up around his legs but his grip on the pillow is tight and close, hugging it.Do it Caitlin.She rounds the couch and stands looking over him, trying to figure out if she could even get her leg between him and the couch without waking him up first.She didn't want him to wake up before she was settled, she wanted to be in control at least a little bit and her brain was telling her this was the way to do it.Putting a hand on the back of the couch she leans across it. _Fucking do it Snow_.Snow.She pulls back and sit on the coffee table, her head in her hands.Snow.He called her Snow. He was the only one who did really and it sounds so sweet in his mouth, so soft and kind and beautiful.God she couldn't do this.She couldn't just have sex with him and expect the feelings in her chest to go away.She was smarter than that.A hot, heavy hand is on her knee and it startles her. She looks up quickly to find Mick looking at her, hand on her knee, his skin just as burning as she remembered."What's wrong..."Everything."Nothing..." She whispers shaking her head, his fingers rub against her skin and she presses into it a little.He pulls his hand away and she looks down at her knee wondering what she had done to make him stop touching her. Mick twists in the sheets and sits up across from her.He leans forward, putting hot hands on her knees, thumbs pressing against the inside of her knees."You can tell me." He tells her, voice quiet, a little rough, "I promise I won't set anyone on fire...unless they really deserve it."She tries to smother the smile that makes and he smiles back at her, body leaning into hers. A warmth seeps into her from his hands and normally in this position she would feel so exposed, sitting in front of him like this, frazzled, in nothing but his sweater and a pair of underwear. She should feel scared, exposed, nervous but the way he looks at her now, not in a way that threatens to melt her to the core but in a way that makes her feel...Safe."Is this about your job? Did the interview not go well? I wanted to ask earlier but I don't have your phone number." His fingers fidget against her legs. Caitlin looks down at his large hands on her and covers them with her own."I got the job."She had wanted to tell him. The moment the job offer arrived she had gone to Cisco, Barry and Iris... But she wanted to tell Mick."Oh good. I figured if you wouldn't keep the necklace you probably wouldn't let us pay you to be our doctor either." He sounds so relieved and it makes something flutter in her chest.Her eyes drop from his eyes to his smile, his mouth, and his loose grip on her legs tightens.This is it.Don't ruin this moment Caitlin.A string of numbers falls out of her mouth and she watches Mick pulls away confused"What?""It's... It's my phone number."He nods but removes his hands from her legs. She ruined it. What the hell happened to her? She didn't have this problem with Ronnie did she?Mick grabs his cell phone from beside her and hands it to her, "I'll never remember it. Len's the one with the head for numbers."Caitlin looks at the phone, it doesn't have a screen lock, its a house on fire, of course. She goes into his contacts and notices what's there. She closes her eyes and makes to hand it back to him."What's the matter, there aren't any naked chicks on it or anything." _Thank god_. She didn't need to see that and find out that Mick liked blondes or some type of girl that she wasn't. It might have destroyed her."There's a lot of information in here about the Rogues...""Uh huh.""It has addresses.""Yeah..." He pulls out the word but makes this soft noise of understanding at the end. "I trust you."She opens her eyes to find him looking at her in a way that makes her crumble a little. She bites her lips and her legs may have fallen a little more open. He doesn't seem to notice though. He reaches out and pushes her hands and his phone closer to her. Had it felt that amazing when she had said it to him?She finds a file for her.  _Snow,_  her address is in the file, her birthday and known associates. It reads like she's one of their Rogues and she doesn't know exactly how she feels about that but she puts her phone number in anyway.She sends herself a test message and can hear her phone buzz in the bedroom before she hands it back to him.Caitlin doesn't know how to get back to where they had been, she wants his hands on her but she does know how to ask, can't figure out a set of words that would make her seem powerful and seductive instead of meek and desperate."Are you going to be here in the morning?" Is what she asks instead of  _kiss me_."Not if you don't want me to be-""No." She blurts out worried, "I want you here." She whispers half hoping he won't hear her. When she looks at him, he's looking at her strangely, like she was some big mystery.She wasn't really.She was just bad at relationships. Always had been. Caitlin remembers meeting Ronnie, about how long it had taken Cisco to convince her that he liked her back. That she wouldn't make a fool of herself. Maybe that's why she hadn't had a problem with finally making a move. There was no one in her life that would tell her that Heatwave really wanted to kiss, of hold hands, or maybe  _be_  something."With Mark and Shawna at my place I'll gladly stay until you kick me out.""They that bad?"He nods, "and when they aren't fucking, in  _my_ bed, Mark is forcing me to watch Days of Our Lives.""Forcing you?""You want to brave a thunderstorm in your living room?"The laugh that falls from her feels good. Mick reaches out and pushes back some tangled hair and she freezes staring at him. His hand hot against the side of her face.This was it, right? _Finally_.His fingers rub against her skin and she leans into the touch. He feels like fire against her, dangerous and needed.Her eyes widen at that. _Needed_.Did she  _need_  Mick Rory?"Good night Caitlin." His voice is soft as he takes his hand away. She doesn't want to lose his touch, the feel of him is so hot against her skin, it burns and if being well read had taught her anything,  _it was a pleasure to burn_."I'm not really tired any more..." She tells him, well she tells the sheets under him  (an obvious lie), "Did you want to watch something with me?"  


"Sure." He moves over on the couch, pushing the sheets back and with staggering breath and heart she grabs the remote and sits next to him.Close.As close as she dares, his arm across the back of the couch as he settles into the corner and she just wants to fall into the space he's made.The space is for her right? She wasn't imagining things.Mick Rory liked her.She liked him.Biting her lip she settled into the space he's made, under his arm, leaning against his chest, legs tucked in beside her tangling with sheet.She handed him the remote after a moment of set up and he starts clicking through the channels."Tell me if you see anything.""Mm hmm."Her head is against his chest, his arm falls off the back of her couch to rest along her side, hot, burning skin against hers, his heartbeat slow, low, healthy in her ear. Caitlin motions at the tv once to indicate a show that looks interesting. She watches enough to figure out it's a period piece mystery before she falls asleep against Mick.  
_Caitlin wakes up to her alarm, it buzzes against the night stand and she reaches out for it, she rubs her eyes and does the simple math problem to prove, yes, she was awake you stupid machine.She pushes herself out of the bed and starts to the bathroom. She's halfway there when she stops stalk still and turns around to look at the bed.She hadn't fallen asleep in her bed... she had expected to wake up on the couch draped over Mick with a sore pretty much everything.Mick is laying on the bed, on top of the covers, arm thrown over his eyes, out cold. He must have brought her to bed.God that was sweet.She watches him for way too long for it to not be creepy, he rolls over towards the empty space she used to occupy, watches him grab at the space, her hip, if she had just hit the snooze button... He gives up and grabs her pillow and pulls it flush against him, he nuzzles the pillow.She's never felt jealous of an inanimate object before. Caitlin grabs some clothes and goes into the bathroom, closing the door tight, hating how punctual she was.He's still asleep when she gets out, fully dressed. She wants to climb back into bed, replace that pillow, have his hot graby hands on her hips.She makes a frustrated noise and not so sneakily snaps a picture of him. Iris would never forgive her...Yeah.That's why.She locks him in and goes to work sending Iris the photo.Her phone blasts loud and vibrating in her pocket before she even gets to the elevator. _"You didn't."_ Iris is so excited that she isn't sure if she's even supposed to respond to that." _Did you sleep with Heatwave!"_  There's noise on the other end and she can hear her apologizing, " _seriously? Did you? I'm dying here."_ "Technically we slept  _beside_  each other." _"Tell me everything!"_ She starts in on the story pleased that she can walk to Mercury from her apartment, so she doesn't have to pause in the painful retelling to get on a bus. Iris seems to really enjoy the fact that she had been caught sleeping in his sweater. It didn't matter how much she swore it was just because it was warm.That's what she got for being friends with a reporter.She's happy to bail on the discussion on what it had meant when Mick stared at her, in order to start work.  
_ _"Please tell me you eat meat."_ Cisco declares from across the room."What? You know I-" she looks over at him from her blood samples to find him waving her phone at her, "Oh god." She almost drops a vile in her rush to grab her phone from him."Wooo Barry you see that?""Yeah, you sure you're not a speedster Cait?""I... I just..." She holds the phone to her chest, glad she hadn't had a chance to put the contact in properly, "I don't butt into your business." She tells them harshly but they both look at her and okay, yeah she knew that wasn't true but this was personal."Who's asking if you eat meat Cait?""You got a boyfriend?" _Boyfriend._ No. _Maybe?_ No. _Damn it._ "What is this? I get one text message about my eating habits and you jump down my throat but Cisco's got hickies on his neck the size of Rhode Island and we are just going to ignore that?" She points dramatically at the dark marks on Cisco's neck.

 

"What?" He slaps a hand over his neck, a flush rushing into his cheeks.

 

"What?" Barry asks smiling brightly. They were both in a really good mood tonight... she narrowed her eyes at the pair of them as Barry laughed and tried to pull Cisco's hands off his neck. She took the opportunity to sneak out of the cortex and look at her phone.

 

Mick had sent her a message.

 

_Please tell me you eat meat._

 

Her face twisted around trying to figure out if there was some sort of secret message being relayed here. She typed a quick  _Of course I do, why?_  

 

Leaning against the wall she looked down at her phone, wondering what the hell she was even doing, why was she hiding this from Barry and Cisco... 

 

If those marks were any indication Cisco couldn't really get on a high horse about maybe sort of having feelings for a Rogue. She would have put money on those marks being from Lisa. She seemed the type to mark her territory.

 

Her phone buzzed in her hand and pulled her violently away from terrible mental images of Lisa and Cisco.

 

_Okay good, because you don't have any meat in your fridge_

 

_I'm still here._

 

_That's okay right._

 

_I can leave if you want._

 

His last few messages came faster than she could type a message back.

 

She deleted her questioning his invasion of her fridge since it would obviously seem like some sort of passive aggressive get out of my house now, which was absolutely the last thing she wanted.

 

_No, please stay._

 

  
_If you want_  she sends a second later, dropping her head into the hard metal wall of the hall, why was she so bad at this? She should just tell him that she liked him, that they should kiss all the time. She needed help. Caitlin looked into the cortex, Barry and Cisco were laughing and pushing each other and it didn't normally feel so much like a boys club.

 

Maybe she could forward his messages to Iris, have her craft witty and sexy messages back on her behalf.

 

_What time do you think you'll be back?_

 

It was a slow crime day, she could leave any time really, she didn't work here any more. She'd wait until her tests finished.

 

_Hour? Two maybe. Why?_

 

She wants the answer to be something sweet, syrupy, like he misses her, or wants to see her. 

 

Something like that.

 

But even if that was true he'd never say it, or type it in this case. She wasn't entirely sure exactly were they stood anyway. He wasn't her boyfriend, he wasn't her anything, her sometimes patient, her house guest maybe. She couldn't get her words out when he was around, his looks froze her, action impossible and she was worried she had the same effect on him, that they would forever be on the verge of kissing.

 

_Dinner_

 

That was all it said. Just dinner. Was her making her dinner? Was he ordering dinner? What about dinner? Did Mick cook? Was that safe? Would he set fire to her apartment? Not on purpose surely, but if something did manage to catch fire... he certainly wouldn't put it out, would he.

 

"Christ. Heatwave is going to burn down my apartment." 

 

"Cait? You okay? You look kinda... off." Cisco asks leaning against the doorway.

 

"I'm... I'm going to go."

 

"Got a hot date?" He asks with a smile.

 

"God I hope not." She mutters rushing to grab her bag from the desk that used to belong to her.

_

 

 


	7. wine confessions

  
"I don't want to do a job tonight." He tells Snart, leaning against Caitlin's fridge, there was an assortment of groceries still waiting on the counter for him to get off the phone.

 

_"You're not still sore about last night are you?"_

 

"No. I just... " He wants to tell Len that he is hoping to have plans tonight, that if things went well maybe he'd be sleeping in her bed after sex, rather on top of it after... well  _not sex_. That after dinner he'd kiss her until she couldn't think about anything other than how much she wanted him, around her, in her life... inside her.

 

Okay he wouldn't tell Len all of that. But that was still what he was hoping to happen.

 

_"Where did you end up anyway? That hotel on McCabe?"_

 

He takes a deep breath, he had hoped he would never have to tell Len where he had spent the night, he couldn't stand another one of those  _Villains don't get Heroes_  talks again.

 

" _You're at The Doctor's aren't you."_  


 

"Yeah."

 

" _And how did that go?"_  he honestly isn't sure if Len is asking as his friend or as his partner in crime, looking out for his assets. He had just collected Snow, he'd be pissed to have lost her because Mick couldn't keep it in his pants. Not that keeping it in his pants was really their problem. He couldn't even get to first base. Something about her was frozen. She burnt, her body too cool, her everything just screamed that she was made of ice, to be watched, to be beautiful, to secretly be deadly, never to  _touch_. And  _god_  he wanted to touch.

 

"It went fine. She's letting me stay until Mark gets out of my apartment."

 

_"You kiss her yet?"_

 

"None of your fucking business." He growls shifting his shoulders to keep the phone pressed against his ear as he goes about putting away what needs to be put away and searching for a cutting board. He had hoped to make her some sort of breakfast in the morning, some coffee at the least but her kitchen had been practically bare. Old Chinese containers in the back of a fridge filled with beer and not much else.

 

She had the fridge of a bachelor.

 

He knew doctors were usually over worked but he hadn't thought it would really extend to her, he was sure for dinner last night she had just had wine and cookies.

 

  
_"So no."_  Len's voice is all smug even tones and if they were in the same room he'd throw a punch but they weren't so he settled for yelling at him.

 

"Mind your own fucking business, what do you care anyway? As long as she's still around to stitch you up. Take Lisa tonight. I'm busy."

 

  
_"Busy? Yeah I doubt it."_  Len laughs on the other end, oddly good natured and hangs up without even saying goodbye. Who did that? Len was such a fucking drama queen. He drops his phone to the counter and turns his attention back to prepping dinner.

 

There's a scratching at the door and Mick puts the knife down and picks up his gun instead, training it at the door. Who the  _fuck_  was this? Caitlin wasn't due back for at least an hour.

 

"Mick? Please tell me nothings on fi-" Caitlin rushes through the door, purse and jacket in her hands. Her eyes obscenely large, body frozen as she stares at him. 

 

It takes him a moment to realize the look is because he's still got his gun aimed at her fucking head, "Shit, shit." He lowers it quickly, "I'm sorry." She doesn't look any less freaked out as she pushes the door closed, "I'm sorry, I thought you weren't supposed to be back for awhile, I thought someone might have been... look. look." He pulls her attention to his hands, he pulls the heat gun apart and sets the pieces on the counter.

 

This was absolutely not the way he had wanted to greet her. 

 

He had wanted to greet her with warm food and hot company.

 

She drops her things to the floor and sits down at the counter, opposite of him. Rests her head in her hands and he feels like shit because he can see her struggling to get her breathing and heartbeat under control. He hated Len irrationally for a moment for cursing him before he grabs a glass and a bottle of wine and pours her a large glass, sliding it beside her.

 

"I'm sorry Caitlin." He's not sure exactly what to even say at this point. Is there anything to say? Could this be reversed, he had just reminded her of the one glaring flaw he had, well combination of flaws. It was easy to forget what he did for a living at night, just the two of them, in the light of a tv, no guns or fire in sight. Every time she was reminded of him being Heatwave he felt she got a little further away from him, just out of reach.

 

"Keep this apart when you're here." She tells him pushing at the pieces, her grip around the stem of her wine glass white knuckled, tone shaky but serious.

 

"Anything you want." He tells her watching some of the tension in her drift away. Not enough to salvage this into something that could lead to kissing.

 

"Anything?"

 

"Yeah." he doesn't even need to think about it and his quick response pushes the smallest of smiles into her face.

 

"Did you sleep well?" She asks turning slightly to keep the gun parts out of her line of sight. She's changing the subject for him, there was hope yet.

 

"Yeah." He slept amazingly once they actually got to bed. Something about a bed with her in it made it the most comfortable place to be, everything just a little cool, her body almost like ice, she was a heat vampire but he had heat to spare. Her skin soft and tempting under his fingers, the smell of her fucking everywhere, "Yeah, really well. There's just this one thing..." He looks away from her, not sure if he can look her in the eye and say the words so he continues with his prep, eyes down on the sharp edge of the knife.

 

"What is it?"

 

"Wake me up."

 

"What?"

 

"Just before you leave... it was... I don't know," fucking awful, " _weird,_ waking up without you here."

 

"Oh. Um. sure. I can do that." He looks up at her, pretending to keep his focus on the knife work, her smile is a little larger, still sweetly shy as she tries to hide it with her wine glass.

 

"How'd you sleep?" She had said she wasn't tired but she had so obviously been, she had fallen asleep on him five minutes in to some British mystery show and god it was pretty much perfect.

 

"Me... uh..."

 

God.

 

Terribly.

 

She had slept terribly, he had invaded her bedroom, he knew he should have played a little more white knight a little less Heatwave but she had smiled at him sleepily and pulled him into the bed half asleep, he bet she didn't even remember.

 

"Better than I have in a while." She tells him, not looking at him, her eyes going to the other side of the apartment, eyeing the frames, still turned face down.

 

God.

 

Her husband. Her dead husband. Something in his chest hurts, just aches for her.

 

Firestorm.

 

She wasn't just trading in one man on fire for another right? Mick started to think about all the things she might like about him and whether or not they corresponded with things he knew about Firestorm.

 

He put down the knife and moved the entire cutting board over to the counter beside the stove. His back to her now he tried to think of all the things he didn't have in common with Firestorm and did it even matter to him  _why_  she liked him?

 

She did.

 

That was enough.

 

He could live with being a replacement as long as she wanted him.

 

Which she did...

 

"You can get under the covers tonight... If you want to. You run a little hot maybe you'd prefer-"

 

Yeah. she totally did.

 

"So you're not banishing me back to the couch?" He can't turn to look at her. He's not sure what kind of look he wants to see there.

 

"I wouldn't be a very good doctor if I let you sleep on that thing. It's terrible for your back." When he looks back at her a flush has risen in her face, pink cheeks, eyes down on her wine glass, chewing on her lip.

 

Nervous.

 

Sweet.

 

God.

 

She liked him. Who cared which parts as long as she looked like that when she thought about him.

 

He wanted to stop what he was doing and just rush to her, touch her face, feel her hair, run a finger across her abused lip, stare into her eyes and just... just... 

 

Probably have her rattle out her social security number this time. 

 

"Whatever you say Doc." He keeps his attention on the food feeling all at once empty and full. It was a strange feeling, and he hated it. It was probably sorrow or longing or something. He never did get around to reading any poetry, all she had here was a handful of science fiction novels and medical textbooks.

 

There was something between them, he knew it, he fucking  _knew_ it.

 

It was just, it was hard to get anything going.

 

He wanted to just tear her apart, have her tear him apart, he wanted to burn with how cold she was, have her icy fingers against his skin, wanted to have the press of her lips, the scraping of her teeth against him. He wanted it to be rough and fucking  _now_ , he wanted to sink into her so far that he would never come completely back.

 

But every time he moved to touch her his heart would freeze, flutter, and he'd come undone, he'd want so many things outside of the rush of libido, the rush and burn and freeze of having her, of fucking.

 

He wanted to, well, he wanted to make her dinner, and talk about her day, and listen to what she had to say, he wanted to take her places and he wanted to hide away from the world with her.

 

"Mick?"

 

"Mmm?"

 

"Should the flames be that high?" She asks a little nervous and his vision clears from the fantasy of just fucking being  _next_  to her to find the pan has already started on fire.

 

"Shit." he felt the pull to let it go, let it consume, he grabbed a lid off the counter and smothered the flames, enjoying the brief heat against his face and hands. 

 

Dinner is salvageable.

 

He plates it, not very pretty, but he knew it would still be good. The table is already set. Them kitty corner to each other, so he can be close, can feel her leg next to his, their hands close.

 

He tries not to watch her eat and she just gets redder and redder every time she see's him looking at her. It's fucking adorable. How could someone who was so cold and hard and rough when he was bleeding be so soft and nervous and sweet. There's music playing, low and slow somewhere behind her, he hadn't noticed her put it on but it's soft and lilting and it just seems to  _fit_.

 

"So what did you do today other than stock my fridge?" She asks taking a drink of her wine. 

 

"I stopped by my place, Shawna and Mark were still there, picked up some things." He shrugs his fingers tearing at the label of his beer, "Went to the farmers market..." He looks up at her quickly gauging her response. It's that shy sleepy smile again.

 

He thinks it's his favourite.

 

"And uh..." He leans in, "Promise not to tell anyone?" He asks and with an eyebrow raised she leans in so he can whisper in her ear, she smells of lilacs and wine, "I watched Days of out lives."

 

She throws her head back a bark of laughter filling the room, she clamps her hands over her mouth her face red with embarrassment and wine. She shouldn't be embarrassed, it's wonderful, something uncontrolled in her strict body was welcome. She was so often controlled, the way she moved, stood, walked, breathed everything so contained and controlled that the brief glimpse of something wild made him wild for her.

 

It felt like maybe they were a match, in secret, something hidden in her the same as him.

 

"Oh my god why?" She asks, trying to pull herself back in, rein that burst of joy back in.

 

He shrugs, "I wanted to know if she died. I mean she got shot at the end of yesterdays episode."

 

"So are you going to watch tomorrow too?" She asks biting back a smile. He wishes she wouldn't do that, it's cute but her smile was magnificent. He reaches out, thumb on her bottom lip, pulls it slowly away from her teeth and the smile disappears completely. Replaced with something that yanks at him, her eyes are boring into him, her skin like ice, it's like she's silently calling out for him to heat her up, for him to melt her.

 

"Well I have to, Philip is coming back." He tells her slowly, trying to figure out exactly the best angle to kiss her from. If he tilts her head would she stall, freeze, pull away, if he leaned across the table would random words fall from her mouth instead of welcoming his kiss. They had a bad track record, he watches her eyes but they stay fixed on his, staring into him as if she could see all the way into the fire in his soul. He stares back and all he finds is ice. His fingers, slide across her face, hook some hair behind her ear and then ultimately drops back to the table. She looks down at her empty plate, swirls the last drops of wine in her glass and he feels frozen by her.

 

"You know you'll be watching it forever now right? They always end on cliffhangers, its what they do." She drops her head back to let the last drops of deep purple liquid drop into her mouth. His eyes on her neck, bared and unmarked. He wanted to fix that for her.

 

"As long as Mark doesn't find out I don't mind too much. I have a lot of downtime between jobs." 

 

He can actually see her body tense at that.

 

Right.

 

Villains don't get Heroes.

 

Not for real, anyway.

 

He could steal these moments with her, the bar fire, his sweater, last night, parts of dinner, but ultimately she was never going to belong with him.

 

Mick pushes himself up and grabs their empty plates.

 

"No." She tells him, a surprisingly sharp snap of sound, her hand on his wrist pushing it down, keeping the plate on the table.

 

"You not done?"

 

"You cooked, you don't clean, it's a rule."

 

"You're sure?"

 

She nods, putting her glass down and instead picking up their plates, pushing away from the table.

 

Caitlin comes back with the bottle of wine and another bottle of beer and sets them on the table. When she sits she pulls her chair a little closer to him and his heart hammers against his ribs. She really would be the death of him, he was sure, because her leg grazes his, she leans in closer, pouring wine into her glass and he feels like he might have a heart attack, a stroke maybe.

 

She pours herself a very large glass of wine and he tries to remember what day of the week it was, did she have to work tomorrow? Was this a Friday night and they were here alone, with some alcohol and soft music when they could be out somewhere, dancing close in terribly lighting, drinking overpriced drinks and standing close to each other until finally something would snap between them, tension and ice and he'd pull her close and kiss her in a way that made her melt into him, wrap her arms around him and pull him impossibly close.

 

They stay at the table, talking about nothing in particular, medical things, her published papers, movies (neither of them seem to have seen anything recent), paintings (he's never been one for abstract. he decidedly doesn't tell her about the priceless artwork he torched), florists, flowers, Cisco and Lisa, nothing.

 

Anything that comes to their minds as they drink the entire bottle of wine and most of the beer in her fridge.

 

_

 

She's drunk and he is... less drunk, by the time she decides dancing is a thing that should happen. She sings a little and it's endearingly terrible and when she eggs him on to join her he's just as bad but her hand is in his, a hand running along her waist as they dance across the apartment a mess of limbs.

 

Caitlin Snow is a terrible dancer and he keeps having to rein her in. Spinning her around she slams into his chest, looking up with dark blown out eyes, wet mouth and he wants to give in to the look she's giving him because  _fuck_  if that wasn't a  _kiss me_  look he didn't know how to start a fire.

 

But she is drunk. 

 

Beyond drunk.

 

She is fucking hammered, they had been drinking for hours and only dancing for a short time, they hadn't worked enough of the alcohol off for him to be positive she would regret everything after he kissed her.

 

He didn't want to kiss her like this, well he did. He did, but he didn't. It was confusing, he wanted to kiss her all the time, anywhere, everywhere, but he wanted it to, to  _mean_  something. He wanted her to want it, he wanted her to want it sober, he wanted to taste  _her_  not wine.

 

She's pulling him down to her, and it physically hurts to put his hands on her wrists and stop her.

 

"What?" She asks as he pushes her back a little.

 

"Not like that." He tells her, voice soft, the beer has made softer, his edges smoothed out and saddened. Something blue about everything.

 

It seemed the wine had had the opposite effect on Caitlin, she was bigger, her edges sharp and jagged.

 

"Not like what? You don't want to kiss me?" She sounds outraged, her eyes wild, angry and he has no idea how to handle this.

 

"Of course I want to."

 

"Then do it." She challenges, eyes hard, and she's so much more Dr. Snow then Caitlin now he can feel his blood rush, heart pound, breath stagger. He wants her so badly, but he wants her in the morning too after the booze has worn off.

 

"You're drunk."

 

"So."

 

"I'm not going to kiss you if you only want me when you're drunk."

 

She looks like she's going to throw something, something violent and dangerous breaking to the surface for a moment, "I want you to kiss me all the time! It's maddening, why don't you just-" Her eyes get large and her hands clamp over her mouth and for a second he thinks that she's upset because of what she said before she rushes past him to the bathroom.

 

She doesn't bother to close the door, the sound of vomiting obvious.

 

Cringing he moves slowly to the bathroom. She's kneeling in front of the toilet, hands on the seat, hair dangerously close to her mouth. She looks up at him with tears in her eyes from the force. Glaring at him she flushes the toilet and he has to smother a smile because its ridiculous that she can look so dangerous in such an exposed position.

 

"I hate you." She growls.

 

"I doubt that." He tells her and when she gets that look on her face and turns back to the toilet he rushes forward and grabs her hair out of the way. Sitting down behind her holding her hair.

 

She pulls her head out of the toilet, flushing and he lets his hands slip from her hair, leaning back waiting for her to turn around.

 

She doesn't, when she speaks it's to the cold water, "Stop doing this, it, it feels too much like love."

 

His heart seizes and he finds it hard to breath, staring at the back of her head, at the stands of hair lightly tangled from his hands, the defeated posture of her body, she's only wearing one shoe now and he doesn't remember when that happened. He doesn't know what to say.

 

Because yeah.

 

Maybe it did feel a lot like love.

 

Too much like love.

 

When her body convulses he moves forward without thinking and grabs her hair for her. His head is swimming too much to think about this. She's crying and throwing up and it's ripping him apart. Mick moves closer, surrounding her, and when she stops and flushes the violently purple evidence away he holds onto her tightly, or as tightly as he dares.

 

Caitlin rests her head against the seat and cries, "Go away, go away." She tells him but he shakes his head.

 

"I'm not going anywhere."

 

"That's what Ronnie said too. Just... Just... I don't want to..." She wipes violently at her face but she can't seem to get more of her thought out before her body forces the wine and dinner up for a second appearance.

 

She doesn't say anything else and he doesn't push. He can't deal with this now, with the fear in her voice, with the terror in his own heart at that stupid four letter word because it fit so well and he didn't know what to do with that.

 

They hadn't even kissed, he shouldn't even be considering love but he was sitting on the floor of her bathroom holding her hair out of the danger zone, rubbing her back and leaning over her to grab tissues for her to wipe her eyes. She was right it felt too much like love.


	8. Girl Talk

The room is too bright.

 

Her back is cold, her legs and feet freezing, her side a million degrees.

 

She runs slowly through the rollodex in her mind of medical condition she might have.

 

Her head throbbing, her throat dry, she feels like if she opens her mouth nothing but bile will come out. She has trouble remembering the last time she had felt this bad.

 

Physically.

 

She's been an emotional wreck too many times to count but that had mostly been internalized, withdrawn, the ache in her chest not in her _everything_.

 

When she went out for drinks with Barry probably.

 

God. This was another hangover.

 

Where were her sunglasses and why was part of her body so hot.

 

She forces her eyes open, cringing and trying to hide from the light, "fucking sun." She grumbles voice raw. There's a rumble of agreement and she looks to her left to find Mick pressed against her side, an arm behind her head and another a hot seatbelt across her stomach, fingers hot against the skin of her hip, her shirt pushed up to just below her bra.

 

No wonder parts of her were so cold.

 

Caitlin lay there looking up at the bathroom ceiling, her eyes trying painfully to adjust to the pale orange light of morning. She let Mick pull her closer, his nose against her neck. Nuzzling, pushing away messy hair. 

 

Skin against skin. 

 

It felt like fire against her cold skin.

 

Why did her eyes hurt so badly, why were they in the bathroom.

 

She'd...

 

_Oh god._

 

She had had too much to drink. She could remember yelling at him to kiss her like she was looking back into a fog, a vasaline smeared lense, a night filled with actions she regretted, with words that were never supposed to leave her mouth.

 

Ronnie.

 

God.

 

Ronnie.

 

Had she really told him to go, to leave, to stop doing everything he was doing.

 

She hadn't been wrong when she said it felt too much like love because even this, after a wrecked night, the two of them equally (well more her than him) hungover, on the floor of her bathroom like some twenty something rom-com beta couple.

 

She needed some water, she needed a shower, she needed a new life, better luck, a new job, her old job, she needed to not be a widow, but she needed Mick to just fucking kiss her already.

 

"Mick?"

 

"Mmm."

 

"You plan on letting me go at some point?"

 

"No." He tells her voice firm, low and a rumble against her skin. It sends shivers across her body, heats her up in ways her tired broken body does not want to deal with right now. How exactly does he mean that answer? A joking thing about right now, as he grips her hip a little tighter, or is it some sort of reassurance, where his memories of last night as foggy and embarrassing as hers? She couldn't remember him doing anything really embarrassing.

 

Then again maybe he was embarrassed about not taking her up on her demands.

 

Kiss me.

 

She doubted it was possible to be more embarrassed then she was. She rubbed her face as if that would somehow make things better.

 

"Do you remember last night?" She asks softly, afraid her head will crack open if she's any louder.

 

"Yes." His voice, still low and quiet and vibrating against her skin, his mouth moving in a way that it brushes against her neck. 

 

Almost kisses.

 

Worse then no kisses.

 

"About what I said..."

 

"Which thing? You said a lot of things last night."

 

"I...I..." She falters turning towards him, his eyes barely open, his body too hot, too welcoming, he tightens his arms around her, wraps them around her so she's trapped, arms between them, palms flat against his chest, his heartbeat under her hand. She closes her eyes tightly, she doesn't want to do this now, she doesn't want to do this ever, she doesn't know how to even start. This seems like a conversation she should have with a boyfriend, not Mick, not Heatwave whose slept next to her twice in a row, whose made her dinner, and danced like a fool in her apartment but wouldn't kiss her, "don't leave."

 

She needs to say more than that. She knows she does. Needs to say why, needs to say something about Ronnie, her dead husband. Needs to say something about how she's so sure he'll end up leaving her just like Ronnie had. Mick wasn't a hero, he would say it, she would feel it, but he was reckless and wild.

 

She couldn't contain him.

 

He was wildfire.

 

She'd lose whatever this was.

 

This feeling in her chest when he sent her flowers, when he looked at her, when his fingers grazed her skin, the feeling in her chest, in the back of her eyes, in her skin, it would be gone because heroes didn't get to keep villains safe.

 

She couldn't keep him safe, she had already stitched him up twice.

 

"I won't." He whispers it, his arms tightening around her, just this side of painful but she needs to feel him, feel him still there because everyone she loves dies.

 

Her eyes snap open.

 

loves.

 

no.

 

That was ridiculous. She pushes against his chest and he unwraps, rolling away letting her push herself up onto shaky legs. She leaves the bathroom slowly, hands on the walls, her vision didn't swim as much as she thought it would but she felt thick and went immediately to her bedroom. She closed the door behind her looking down at the floor in front of the bed, on Mick's side, a duffel bag, the things he had mentioned bringing over.

 

She purposefully gave it a wide berth, shedding clothes with a thick feeling, slow movements until she was in a pair of leggings and Mick's sweater, because fuck it, it was comfortable and she wasn't going anywhere. She brushes out her hair, sunglasses on and eyes the bag.

 

What kind of things would he have brought? Curiosity got the better of her and grabbing it and putting it on the bed she unzipped the bag, undershirts, thin flannel shirts that would make him look like a lumberjack, pants, the Heatwave jacket and pants, socks, underwear (she skimmed over those trying not to look), a bag of money she didn't want to know the origins of and in one of the pockets a toothbrush, shaving gear and...

 

and...

 

no.

 

no way.

 

They hadn't even kissed yet.

 

She grabs a handful of the foil packages and rips the door open to glare him down.

 

Mick is in the kitchen when she finds him, making coffee.

 

"Mick." Her voice is too loud and sharp and she cringes at it but so does he, "Seriously?"

 

"Seriously what?" He asks pouring himself a mug and turning slowly to look at her, "shit."

 

"Yeah. Seriously? You brought these?"

 

His eyes narrow, thinking something over, "Did you go though my bag?" 

 

"Obviously."

 

"I thought you trusted me?"

 

"That doesn't mean I wasn't curious." She deflates dropping the condoms to the counter. He hands her the mug and she drinks deeply, pulling as much of the bitter liquid in as she can stand in hopes of not talking about this obvious invasion of privacy.

 

"They were still in the bag from a job in Boston."

 

"Okay..."

 

"I used to know a girl there..."

 

"You don't have to tell me." She looks down into her mug, dark glasses and dark liquid she can barely see it.

 

"I thought if last night had gone well... well always be prepared right?" She looked up at him to watch a nervous smile flit across his face before he bit it down.

 

"You were a boyscout?"

 

"You kidding? They let you build fires, course I was." the smile slowly reappears as he watches her. She smiles slowly back the thought of little Mick his eyes bright and wide at the fire he had created is oddly sweet.

 

"This," She puts her hand on the packages and pushes them across the counter towards him, "This isn't happening tonight."

 

Not until after they kiss at the very least.

 

"You too hungover for some action Snow?" He asks voice deep and slow and it does something to her, something worryingly pleasant and not all sexual. There was something calming and warming about his voice that she found she really rather loved.

 

loved.

 

fuck.

 

There was that word again.

 

She doesn't know what her face does but Mick retreats into himself a little bit, grabbing the condoms and pushing them into his pocket out of site.

 

"You think you can manage some breakfast, wino?" He asks changing the subject quickly, pouring more coffee into her cup and honestly the very idea of food is appalling.

 

"I'm not a wino." She grumbled but she knew that he hadn't helped any on the empty bottle of malbec on the table.

 

"Sure and I'm not a pyro." He tells her flicking a lighter she hadn't even known he'd had on him. He moves around the counter to collapse on the couch. She follows suit, curling up on herself and settling into a corner. Mick rests his arm lazily across her legs and grabs the remote.

 

They settle on something quiet, a painting show on public assess and settle into the near silence around them.

 

The silence in the apartment feels so much better with the soft added sound of his breath.   
_

 

Mick is in the shower when she gets the call from Iris.

 

She's too loud.

 

Her head still throbbing, she feels hungover from more than just wine.

 

_"_ _Sooo_ _...."_

 

"So?" She cringes pulling the phone further from her ear.

 

_"Let me in."_

 

"What? Where?" She pushes herself off the couch looking between the front door and the hallway where she could see light from her bedroom against the wall, the low steady sound of a shower pounding against wall and body.

 

_"Where do you think? Buzz me up."_

 

Oh god.

 

She pulls the phone away from her ear and sees that the id says Front Door not Iris. She presses the short combination of numbers to let her in.

 

She is going to regret this she knew it. Felt it down in every bone in her body as she opened the front door for Iris.

 

"Well don't you look comfortable?" Iris drops her purse at the door and grabs at the hem of the CCFD sweater, the smile on her face is insufferable.

 

"What are you doing here?"

 

"I'm here to take you to lunch, you're boyfriend is welcome to join us of course." She says boyfriend with a smile so wide she can practically see the canary feathers.

 

"He's not my boyfriend Iris." She tells her quietly looking over her shoulder to the light in the hallway. She didn't know what he was. He was something. She was sure of that but what exactly that something was she didn't know. Everything was up in the air after her drunken confessions last night. She had said it felt too much like love.

 

He hadn't disagreed.

 

Did that mean he loved her too? Because she... she loved him right?

 

But maybe he just thought it felt too much like love too.

 

The shower stopped.

 

"We'll see about that." Iris had this cut throat look on her face when Mick walks down the hall pants on, but only a towel around his shoulders.

 

"Snow, you're out of-" his eyes land on Iris and something changes in his face, it gets hard, his eyes steal, his jaw clenched. It's a startling thing to see, a visible transformation from Mick to Heatwave, "Who are you?" She watches his eyes drift across the apartment to land on the pieces of the heat gun.

 

"This is Iris, she's my friend." She steps in such away that puts her between him and the pieces of the gun, "Iris this is Mick." She wants to give him a qualifier but she doesn't know what. She can't say boyfriend they haven't talked about that, what if she said that and he didn't agree?

 

Maybe he was just a house guest.

 

A house guest that wouldn't kiss her last night.

 

"You're Heatwave right?" Iris steps quickly across the room and holds her hand out for Mick to take, "I've heard a lot about you."

 

He narrows his eyes, still a hundred percent Heatwave, standing there in her apartment made of steel and fire. This wasn't the man she wanted Iris to meet, she wanted her to meet Mick, the sender of flowers, defender of women, she wanted Iris to meet the man that held her hair last night.

 

"I'm sure you have." His voice is low and rumbles with poorly concealed danger. He takes her hand and she's impressed but not at all surprised when they stare at each other waiting for the other to back down. Caitlin can feel the air thicken between them and she isn't sure what exactly to do to defuse it.

 

Was Mick still wanted? 

 

That was stupid of course he was.

 

Iris wouldn't turn him in would she?

 

She might if it turned out that she didn't like him. The idea of Mick behind bares tightens something in her chest and she rushes forward and puts her hand on his arm.

 

"Mick, Iris is going to take us out for lunch... think you can stomach it?" She asks with a nervous smile. 

 

Mick finally lets go of Iris' hand to look at her instead, the rough, hard edges of him soften as he looks at her.

 

"I can if you can." He tells her a hint of a smile on his face.  
_

 

Mick's hot hand was on the small of her back again, it kept finding it's way to rest there as they moved through the farmers market. She certainly didn't mind, he kept steering her away from crowds, keeping her close as he talked to Iris about fruit in season, and how to get the best bargain out of the farmers, the best way to can peaches.

 

Wait.

 

She turns to look at him, his hand hot and skimming across the waistband of her skirt as she turned, slipping under her shirt slightly.

 

"Are you saying that you can peaches?" She asks raising her eyebrows at at him, confused.

 

Iris is on the other side of Mick a couple of peaches in her hands.

 

"No. I haven't canned anything for years..." He tells her honestly but there's the faintest of colouring in his face, a dusting of embarrassed pink across his cheekbones and the bridge of his noise and god if that isn't the cutest thing.

 

"You used to can peaches."

 

"I grew up on a farm..." He shrugs, takes the peaches out of Iris' hand and replaces them with a different set without saying why.

 

Iris shakes her head slightly and goes to pay for the new peaches.

 

Once she's out of earshot Mick turns to her, his attention fractured, looking somewhere behind her, his hands on her hips like he was so familiar with her body already.

 

He just kept touching her and she couldn't say she minded at all. He was standing so close that she thought she might combust with the amount of heat he was putting out. She ran her fingers along the flannel of his shirt and wondered how he could stand all that heat, he seemed to devour it, he was a fire.

 

She looks up at his face and notices the death glare he's giving someone behind her so she turns to find some very frightened college aged boys scurrying away.

 

"What's the matter?" She asks softly bringing his eyes back to her.

 

"They were looking at you."

 

"Maybe they were looking at you? Or Iris? Or the sale on apples?" She offers but he shakes his head.

 

"No one would look at apples like that."

 

"Like what?" She smiles softly and can't believe how easy it is to smile again. There was just something so burning about being around him now, something safe and consuming. She wanted to be consumed by him as strange as that idea was. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted to reach up, brush her fingers across his cheek, press her hand against his neck and pull him carefully down.

 

"The way..." He looks at her and fumbles with his words, "Like that..." His fingers brush carefully across her cheek and tuck stray hair behind her hair something hot and smouldering in the air between them.

 

She swallows and wets her lips. Here? Right here? In the middle of the farmers market? Was this the right place? 

 

Caitlin was pretty sure that any place was the right place. The bottom of the ocean, the deadly cold of space, the middle of a war zone. As long as it meant his mouth against hers she didn't care when or where it was.

 

"So I got a deal on the- oh. Um sorry." Iris burst the intimate atmosphere around them and she hated her a little bit when Mick pulled away to look at Iris's haul. His hand sliding down her arm to loop fingers around her wrist.  
_

 

Lunch is a slow and lazy affair, Iris pokes and prods at Mick until he confesses to watching Days of Our Lives, he makes her swear on her honour not to write about it in some article for the newspaper. They eat slowly, Mick keeps finding reason's to touch her and she wonders if Iris would ever let her live it down if she dragged Mick into some closet somewhere and kissed him until they couldn't think straight.

 

She'd probably never live it down.

 

Caitlin knows Mick would be up for it. She's sure of it. As long as they don't talk about the worries she brought up last night while drunk, as long as they steadfastly ignore anything serious and just focus on wonderfully physical contact she knows that this can work.

 

As soon as her mind thinks back to her words last night and the painful silence he had given in response everything will fall apart.

 

"You'll excuse us." Iris smiles brightly at Mick and then her and stands from the table.

 

Us?

 

Caitlin looks around the resturant not sure whats going on until she looks back at Iris and she's giving her big eyes and motioning with her head towards the bathroom.

 

"Oh!" She puts her napkin down and follows Iris to the bathroom.

 

Girl talk.

 

That's what was happening, or about to happen rather. Iris is leaning against the bathroom counter staring at her when she closes the bathroom door.

 

"Why did you- "

 

"So he's in love with you." Iris tells her flat out and she sputters a little in response.

 

"What? No." She tells her friend, staring at the edge of the sink instead of Iris' excited face.

 

"Uh yes. He is smitten. Have you not seen the way he is with you? He has a hand on you pretty much constantly. It's a little cute and don't get me started on the way he looks at you."

 

She kind of wants her to get started on that. She needs an outside opinion because this is obviously messy. There is no cut and dry romance here. This wasn't like Lisa Snart whose record was clean due to some sort of miracle, who enjoyed a little chaos but preferred a clean payout and a clean get-a-way. This wasnt like that, Mick showed no remorse about being an arsonist, enforcer, thief, murderer,  _villain_.

 

Heroes only got the villain when they weren't the villain any more, when they turned over a dubious leaf and became an ally  and _Mick_ was sweet and kind and held her without pushing but _Heatwave_ was this raging fire inside him and she knew, _knew_ she was going to get burnt.

 

"You know he looks at you like there isn't anyone else in the world right?" Iris asks a hand on her shoulder, voice soft and careful, "He's so obviously head over heels for you... Do you... do you not want him to be?"

 

"I don't know..." She chances a look at Iris, she's all big wet brown eyes, tentative, worried. Caitlin doesn't know why she looks like that, Iris wasn't in danger here, her heart wasn't on the line here.

 

It takes a long silent moment of Iris clinging to her shoulder for Caitlin to realize that she looks like that _for_ her. That she's feeling a piece of this ice cold fear in her.

 

"I just," She falters and steps into Iris, not sure why until her head rests against the girls shoulder, she breathes in the scent of fresh linen and fruity shampoo, "How can he love me if we've never even kissed?" She wants to know how its possible for her to feel like this without the easy confirmation his mouth could provide moving against her own.

 

Iris wraps her arms loosely around her but her fingers press hard into her shoulders, "Love comes in a lot of different forms, it's not always burning and physical."

 

"But I want it to be. I want to just be consumed." She grips Iris's shirt her voice feels thick, "I want it to be easy. I want it to make sense."

 

"If it made sense it wouldn't be love."

 

"He's a super villain." 

 

"Are you sure?" Iris pulls away a soft smile full of good humor pulling across her face, "I've seen Heatwave on tv and I've read about him and he certainly doesn't seem like the type of person to spend the afternoon happily at a farmers market talking about his grandmother canning secrets, or gushing about yesterdays episode of Days of our Lives."

 

"You think it's okay if I... if I..." She can't get that short and powerful word out of her mouth but Iris doesn't seem to need her to.

 

"I think that he loves you, that he thinks you are the best and brightest star in the world. If you find someone who looks at you like that... you hold on to it before he's gone."

 

The words ring sad and true and hit her in the chest. 

 

  
_Eddie_.

 

The air between them is thick and heavy, charged with the name that no one is saying, her throat and chest feel thick and she doesn't know exactly how to defuse this. How to make a smile pull across her friends face.

 

"So you think I should kiss him?"

 

"Yes. Now lets get out of here before he thinks we fell in or ditched him." Iris shoos her towards the door.

 

"You coming?"

 

"In a minute." Iris smiles brightly at her. Too brightly to be real but just like she hadn't mentioned how lonely Caitlin was she doesn't mention anything about this either. Just nods and opens the door to return to their table.

 

Mick is playing with a lighter when she rounds sits back down at the table.

 

He runs his fingers though the flame once more before slipping it into his pocket and turning his attention back to her. 

 

"Thought you might have run off with her." He pulls his chair closer to her, their legs touching under the table, hi eyes dragging across her face. Is he looking for something? Is he looking for red marks, for tear tracks?

 

"Not today." she supplies watching the smile grow on his face. It's really rather magical, how soft and sweet and focused he  _can_ be. He was too many things at once, too chaotic, even just sitting there beside her looking at her like...

 

Looking at her like he never wanted to look at anything else in the world. Like maybe she was it, the end of everything and he couldn't be happier just to get to be this close to her.

 

God it was a great look. It filled her chest with a warmth that felt foreign. Even Ronnie... he had never looked at her quiet like that. Like he would set the world on fire if she asked. It felt powerful and deadly and she felt it eating away at the dark doubt in the corners of her. Iris was right, this look, this look wouldn't exist if he didn't love her back.

 

Love her  _back._  


 

Meaning she loved him.

 

Fuck.

 

She absolutely did.

 

It... it felt good to love someone again. She reached across the space and put her hand on his, threaded her fingers through his own heavy hot ones, feeling his warmth seep into her. Her body feels warm for once, something about just sitting there with him in near silence, connected this way and so many intangible other ways, felt like being alive again.

 

Like she was defrosting.

 

He squeezes her fingers in between his own and looks at her like she was this huge important thing he couldn't believe he got to be close to and she smiles back at him in a way she hopes says the same things.

 

Iris arrives a minute later, sits down across from them smiling and happily demands the dessert menu even though it's only lunch.


End file.
